EVEN coming from the footballing nation who coined the phrase ‘glorious failure’, there is a stat about Joe Jordan that is hard to stomach due to the sheer injustice of it all. And as someone who represented his country with great distinction as he earned 52 caps over nine years, he - more than anyone - doesn’t deserve the pain it must have caused him.
Jordan scored at three separate World Cups for his country, and yet, Scotland went out of them all at the group stage on goal difference. Galling for the big Cleland-born frontman, to say the least. But would he crawl over broken glass to pull on that dark blue jersey once more and go through it all again? You bet he would. He simply cannot fathom a scenario in which he would refuse Scotland’s call.
That’s why he is scratching his head at the situation his former international teammate Alex McLeish currently finds himself in, as the Scotland manager patches up his squad for the crucial UEFA Nations League matches against Albania and Israel thanks to a host of reluctant conscripts.
Robert Snodgrass, citing an ankle problem, has joined Matt Ritchie in asking not to be selected. James McArthur, having asked to be omitted from a previous international get-together, has now retired. Scotland assistant Peter Grant has hinted he may not be the only one of that group who finds his international career cut short.
Jordan struggles to wrap his head around it all, stupefied at the current climate around the national side.
“The whole notion of not wanting to play for your country is foreign to me,” Jordan said.
“I don’t care what era you live in, to play for your country and even to get selected for your country should mean the world to you.
“I just can’t take it in that players wouldn’t be desperate to play for their country. I have no answer as to why that might be the case, because it is just simply not in my mindset.
“I can’t comment on individual Scottish players, but I find all of this very difficult to comprehend.”
There seems to be no definitive reason behind the current malaise engulfing some of those asked to pull on the dark blue, and none of those being offered stack up for Jordan. Is it a lack of faith in the manager after some poor results?
“It shouldn’t come into it,” Jordan said. “We’re talking here about playing for Scotland, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with Alex McLeish or Gordon Strachan or whoever the manager may be.
“You have to prove yourself to get there. I can’t think of any honour higher than that in all honesty. You have to jump a lot of hurdles to achieve that, but when you reach that stage it is well worth it.
“The end result is to see whether you have what it takes to wear a Scotland jersey, or an England jersey, or a Welsh or a Brazilian one. That’s it. It’s your goal in the game.”
Maybe a lack of competition for places then, so fierce in Jordan’s day, means that players believe they can pick and choose when to answer their country’s call safe in the knowledge that Scotland will be forced to go back to them? Plausible, but not acceptable according to Jordan.
“When I was with Scotland, I knew that if I didn’t play well and put in a performance, there was a strong chance that I wouldn’t be asked back,” he said.
“But I always turned up when I was asked. Sometimes I wasn’t asked through the manager’s choice, but on those occasions, it always made me get the finger out and work that little bit harder to try and improve my consistency.
“In my time, there was a competitive edge, but that was to play. The question of turning up or not never even came into it.”
Perhaps it is club football now trumping international football in a list of players’ priorities? In Jordan’s experience, if this is indeed the case, it is a peculiarly Scottish development.
“I find it very difficult to believe that players wouldn’t want to turn up,” he said. “I never saw that.
“At Spurs [when he was assistant manager], we lost a lot of players because they wanted to go and play for their country, succeed, achieve things and not have any regrets.
“We had four Croatians; Verdan Corluka, Luka Modric, Niko Krancjar and Stipe Pletikosa. They were desperate to play for their country. For all of the wealth and the honours they had won, that never diminished one bit. I remember they had their Croatia flag up in their corner of the dressing room.
“I was delighted that they had that same desire and passion to want to play for their country as I did. Croatia is a small country like ours, but the quality of players they have and their will to win shows you what can be done.
“The top players I worked with still always wanted to pull on that international jersey.”
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