TAKING SCOTS TO EUROS CAN TOP THE LOT
Jambos return for Robbie
STEVEN REID last night insisted helping Scotland back to the big stage as a coach would top starring at the World Cup as a player.
And the former Ireland defender says it would be the perfect payback for Steve Clarke who nursed him through injury hell.
Reid revealed how he turned his attention to coaching after the pain of 10 operations during a 17-year playing career finally took their toll.
It was his former West Brom boss Clarke who handed him his first coaching role at Reading but it was a shortlived spell after the axe fell on the new Scotland gaffer at the Royals.
Reid worked under Roy Hodgson at Crystal Palace before taking a sabbatical to spend time with his family – and the 38-year-old is delighted to be working alongside Clarke again after the call came in to join Alex Dyer as part of his Hampden management team.
Now Reid is targeting success together with a new era kicking off when Cyprus visit Glasgow on Saturday before a trip to Belgium.
Scotland are looking to end a 22-year wait to reach a tournament by qualifying BY GAVIN BERRY for next summer’s finals and Reid says pulling that off would eclipse his two games for Ireland at the 2002 World Cup.
He said: “I had a difficult end to my playing career, I had 10 surgeries, some real tough times.
“As a player you think you’ll be playing in another big tournament in two years, then another World Cup in four, but the 2002 World Cup turned out be the pinnacle of my playing career and it was right at the beginning. So to be there as a coach, that could top it.
“I played in the Premier League and coached there but to help take Scotland to a tournament after so long would just be amazing.
“It’s a great incentive – and if we do it I’ll try and take it in a little bit more and actually enjoy it.
“It is such an honour to now be representing Scotland in a coaching capacity and working with a manager who I know well.
“It was such a short period we had together at Reading, too short, but he got my coaching career off to a start. When he came in at West Brom we had a good relationship there too.” HEARTS and Dundee United will face-off against each other in the curtain-raiser to the 2019/20 season.
Former Jambos boss Robbie Neilson will take the Taysiders – who lost to St Mirren in the Premiership Play-off Final – to Tynecastle on Friday, July 12, in the first Betfred Cup group encounter of the campaign.
The match kicks-off at 7.45pm and will be broadcast live by BT Sport as all the group fixtures were announced.
The eight group winners and four best runners-up progress and they will be joined by the four sides in Euro action – Celtic, Rangers, Kilmarnock and Aberdeen – in the last-16 draw on Sunday, July 28.