BREAKING NEWS:Celtic fc announce the return of former key player in January….
The shirt with 75 on the back awarded amid great ceremony against Finland in May has already been consigned to history. With Craig Gordon’s Scotland story having extended unexpectedly, the souvenir may well be trumped by one displaying 80.
And then, well, who knows? Gordon will have turned 42 by the time World Cup qualifiers start, which will see him outstrip the likes of Pat Jennings and Dino Zoff, who both stopped playing international football aged 41. Jim Leighton’s last cap was at 40 but he had amassed 91 by then. There’s no telling where Gordon will end up although an added complication is that he might be without a club at the end of this season, with his Hearts contract due to expire in the summer.
As for the Leighton total, a record for a Scotland goalkeeper, Gordon is realistic. “That still seems a long way away at this moment in time,” he says. “I’ll just concentrate on the next double-header and try and get two, and then (the chance for the) next cap is not until March. I don’t set too many long-term goals at this stage of my career, it’s all much more short-term and trying to keep playing well.”
One can understand why the one-game-at-a-time cliché really does apply in this case. He is simply relishing his international recall and creating some bonus memories such as last month’s comeback game against Croatia. He had been expecting to be sitting at home. Instead, after an injury sustained by Angus Gunn, he was thrust back into the white heat of international football, re-writing his own record as Scotland’s oldest international footballer in the unfortunate 2-1 defeat.
Even Luka Modric, who recently became Real Madrid’s oldest-ever player aged 39, was impressed. He also sounded grateful as he spoke on the eve of the match about not being the oldest player on the pitch for once. Modric had first come across Gordon in England, where they played against each other for Spurs and Sunderland respectively.
“That was the first time in five attempts he managed to beat me, so he eventually got me!” says Gordon. “But it was nice to hear him say what he did and hopefully again this week he won’t be the oldest player on the pitch. I’ll beat him to that one as well.”
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