From Rangers to England, but Liam Scales keeping lid on emotion
MEET AND GREET: Liam Scales with supporters on his arrival for a Republic of Ireland training session at the FAI National Training Centre in Abbotstown. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Rangers one weekend, England the next. Generations of Irish kids have dreamed of wearing the green against both of those sides. Liam Scales may well face the two of them in the space of just seven days.
He’s already halfway to a unique double.
Last Sunday brought a 3-0 home Old Firm win for Celtic in front of almost 60,000 people at Parkhead. Now he’s counting down the hours to the Nations League Group B opener against the oldest of enemies at the Aviva Stadium.
“Yeah, it's not happened before that a player will have Rangers one week and England the next. It's as good as it gets. Hopefully we can do as well as we did on the weekend against Rangers, bring that in to Ireland against England.”
These are games that give rise to deeply embedded emotions but there’s more scope for that on the terraces than on the field. Scales talks about the need to maintain discipline and keep 11 men on the pitch regardless of the opposition and he’s right.
“I don’t think we need more motivation than just playing for your country in the first place,” he explained, “but there is that extra there for the public, and you know how much it means to a lot of people.
“I’ll use it a little bit but it won’t be too different to a normal game. You have to keep it the way you usually do. You don’t want to change too many things in the way you get yourself up for a game, so it will be minor things.”
The presence of Lee Carsley, Declan Rice and Jack Grealish in the away dressing-room is an obvious talking point this week but then this is a rivalry that has long catered for blurred lines when it comes to loyalties and lineage.
The Republic has profited from a rich seam of first and second-generation Irish players with half-a-dozen of the current squad of 23 born and bred in the UK. Scales himself is another example of the ties that bind across the Irish Sea.
Born in Wicklow, he has played Gaelic football and cut his teeth playing in the League of Ireland. He is able to give interviews ‘as gaeilge’ having extended his studies of the language through to third level - and he plays for Celtic, of course.
He also has an English dad, not that loyalties will be divided on Saturday.
“He is fully invested in my career for so many years now that it’s not even a choice for him. He used to bring us to the Irish games when we were kids and he has followed Irish football longer than me. That won’t be a difficult choice for him.”
Heimir Halgrímsson has some obvious gaps in his squad as he gets to grips with his new job. Centre-back isn’t one of them but Scales’ left foot and versatility are strong cards to play as the pen is poised to start writing this new chapter.
So is his form.
Celtic have won all five games so far this season and they have yet to concede a goal. Scales has played in every one of them. He is a keystone in the team when, 12 months ago, he was probably seventh-choice and standing with one foot beyond the exit door.
Injuries and other vagaries fell his way at the time and he was good enough to take full advantage.
A full Ireland debut came against Greece in November and Brendan Rodgers was quoted this week declaring that, if he wasn’t the “sexiest” of players, then he was one of the most crucial at the Scottish club.
How did he feel about that?
“I take a bit of offence to it! No, if you read the article the headline was kind of taken out of context a bit. He was talking about the players from Ireland or Scotland or the UK in general: the fans don’t find them as glamorous as signing a player from Spain or Italy.
“He meant it in a good way. It was a compliment and I’ll take it and I know exactly what he means. Sometimes fans get more excited about players from elsewhere, and that’s football, but to hear that I am a crucial part of it is brilliant.”
Domestic dominance in Scotland shows no sign of abating and a Champions League draw that threw up games against the likes of Slovan Bratislava, Young Boys, Bruges and Dinamo Zagreb offers a tantalizing chance of rare European joy to go with it.
It’s three years since he was first called into a senior Ireland squad but, while his stock has risen appreciably in Glasgow, there is still a sense of the 26-year old finding his niche in the international game.
“The first squad I was in, I had just finished playing for Shamrock Rovers. It’s a great club and a great experience for me, but I’ve played 100 games at a different level and that has improved me a lot.”
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