ROBERTSON
Liverpool star says Tannadice pair Rankin and Paton set him on path to stardom:
FROM Dundee to Doha, from John Rankin to James Milner, from Motherwell to Monterrey, from the bottom of Scottish football to the top of the world, the Andy Robertson story has produced more surreality than Salvador Dali on a bender.
The tale has, however, been underpinned by a reality that has sometimes been painful and regularly demanding. The past is instructive but it is the future that demands the attention of the 25-year-old Scot.
Sitting down in the opulent surroundings of a hotel in Doha yesterday, he found time to reflect on how he has come to a point in life when his next sporting step is to walk out for a FIFA Club World Cup semi-final against Monterrey of Mexico.
But this was an exercise in dismissing fairy tales. This is real life and Robertson has been accompanied throughout his career by constant friends and deeply held principles.
There has been dramatic success. But there have also been missed birthdays, missed celebrations, and the regular, vocal demands from his elders. He has relished all of this, indeed invited it.
‘I didn’t think it was a given that I would become a footballer,’ he says of a career that started with rejection at Celtic. He points to such as Rankin and Paul Paton at Dundee United for the push in the back that shoved him up the ladder. He mentions Milner as the presence that makes the young Scot seek to improve every day at Liverpool, champions of Europe.
‘I have approached every game in the last six years in the same way,’ he says of travelling from Queen’s Park to Anfield.
‘It’s been the exact same. I don’t change that, so it has just been a continuing process but, obviously, in slightly bigger games. The demands are greater the higher you go and I thrive on that.
‘If you stay still for too long then the demands don’t come as high.’
Yet Tannadice and the lessons learned there will be carried into the Khalifa Stadium tonight.
‘The likes of John Rankin was massive for me because he effectively talked me through games in my first three months,’ says Robertson of the 36-year-old midfielder, now playing at Clyde.
‘A lot of people said I was always attacking at Dundee United but I couldn’t have done that if John wasn’t covering the left-back position. Maybe he didn’t get the credit he deserved but I certainly appreciated his advice when I was young and I am the player I am now because of people like John.
‘Some young lads nowadays can think the old boys are on their case and shy away from it but I wanted John Rankin and Paul Paton to tell me my negatives because that got the best out of me.
‘I would say to myself: “They think I need to do this, so I’ll show them in the next game”.’
Milner, the 33-year-old who has spent more than half his life playing in the English Premier League since his debut for Leeds United at 16, now performs the role of demanding mentor.
‘I probably get a lot more stick off Milly than I did off Ranks,’ says Robertson, who pointed out that the buccaneering success enjoyed by himself and fellow full-back Trent Alexander-Arnold is only possible because of the work of others.
But Robertson, too, is frank about the demands that have been made on him.
‘When I was younger, I was always someone who wouldn’t go out with my mates if I had a game the next day,’ he says. ‘There were times when I wanted to.
‘I missed a lot of birthdays, missed out on a lot of big occasions. All of my family’s happiest occasions in the last five or six years have been coming to watch me and I don’t get to see them.
‘They have all had big days out at Scotland games, Champions League finals and I’m the one playing in a high-pressured match. Maybe a day later, they are talking about it all and I’m stuck in my bed sleeping.’
There is no lament about this, just a sober statement of fact underpinned by the satisfaction of ambitions realised. ‘These are the things I want,’ he says.
‘I believe I have given my friends and my family fantastic memories, so, for me, that’s the happiness.
‘But you do miss out on a lot and you do have to sacrifice a lot, especially in the younger years. These things seem small but missing out on your best pal’s 18th birthday or whatever was quite big.
‘Maybe when you are at Queen’s Park, people don’t understand why you would be doing that but my goal was always the same. I wanted to become a professional and I was willing to put everything into it. I thought that if it doesn’t work out, I will catch up on the nights out.’
His next night out is in the Khalifa Stadium in a city that has been invaded by supporters, largely from Liverpool and Flamengo of Brazil. Robertson seeks to follow fellow Scots Scott Booth (Borussia Dortmund) and Darren Fletcher (Manchester United) in winning the world’s premier club trophy.
‘We want to make history for this club because Liverpool have never won it,’ he says.
‘The incentive of being the third Scot to win it is there.’
The Christmas period will thus make heavy demands with a demanding schedule to come as the club seeks to win a first league title since 1990.
‘We fly back two nights before Christmas and that’s tough, especially for those of us with young kids,’ says Robertson, who has a son and a daughter under the age of three. ‘But it’s what we need to do and it’s what we get paid very well to do.
‘The presents, you can do online. It’s more the quality time with your family that’s the issue and the stuff that you’re missing out on. Luckily, we have understanding partners and my kids are too young to hold a grudge against me.’
He would gladly accept the same pressure in three years in the same city but in a dark blue shirt.
‘We want to be here for the World Cup,’ he states. ‘It’s not been the most positive of years in terms of the national team but I feel as if we have ended on a high. It’s now about carrying it into the following year which, hopefully, takes us to the Euros.’
The future unfurls before him in the Middle East in the manner of an exotic, sporting magic carpet. Robertson looks at it face-on. He knows what has brought him here. He believes it can take him further.