Thursday 7 November 2019 12:13, UK
Craig Gordon cannot wait for Scotland to face England in June despite the prospect of Celtic’s Champions League qualifying campaign starting just a month later.
At one stage the goalkeeper's career looked to be over because of a knee injury which saw him play one match in almost three and a half years but he has returned to top form with club and country and started on Sunday as Scotland beat Slovenia 1-0 to revitalise their World Cup 2018 campaign.
Gordon Strachan's team meet England at Hampden in a World Cup qualifier on June 10, with Celtic set to begin their Champions League qualifying programme on July 11-12, but Gordon is relishing the idea of playing in so many big matches after spending so much time on the sidelines in the past.
"I just play in every game I can possibly play in," Gordon said. "There's a sacrifice when you're an international - you don't get as much holiday time. But I had a long spell out of the game so I want to play in every game I possibly can between now and the end of my career.
"This season has been great for big games, both at club level and getting into the Champions League, and also the internationals, I have managed to get myself back in the team in the last two [qualifiers].
"It's been a season of big highs for me personally so far so I will just try and keep that going as long as possible."
Gordon says team-mate Scott Brown will have to make a decision based on his own body, with the 31-year-old non-committal on his international future. Brown retired from Scotland duty in August, but returned against England at Wembley in November.
"He's a big player but it depends entirely on how he is physically and mentally at the end of a hard season," Gordon said. "We have still got nine or 10 games to go - he has still got a big effort to put in before then. He is not getting any younger but he will make that decision closer to the time when he knows how he's feeling.
"There will be a lot of us who have had a long, hard season and it might just come down to who is in the best physical shape to go out there and play in that game.
"You can talk about a team so far in advance but you just don't know. There's a lot of football to be played and you never know with injuries."
Previous Celtic boss Ronny Deila gave some of his players staggered time off towards the end of last season with an early start in mind, and current Parkhead manager Brendan Rodgers might have to consider something similar given that six of his players started for Scotland on Sunday.
Gordon said: "There's maybe 10 days to two weeks between the England game and the start of pre-season and then we have friendly matches, and if there are any new signings, you have to get them bedded in.
"It's the manager's job here to sit down and have a look at that and see when everybody comes back in and how they fit everybody into pre-season training. It's a juggling act but one the coaching staff here will have to deal with."
The goalkeeper feels the plethora of Celtic players involved at the weekend was a major factor in Scotland's return to form.
"Having so many guys from the one team that knew each other, we knew the patterns of play we wanted to achieve and the positions we wanted to get on the ball," he said. "The way we have been playing just transferred. I think it was a very similar performance to how we have been playing here: full of energy, getting about the other team, trying to get the ball back.
"It was a good performance because everybody knew what they had been doing at club level and could take it into the international game because they knew what the guy next to him was going to be doing."