The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
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Callum McGregor is ready to make up for lost time and lead from the front for Scotland.
The Celtic midfielder was desperate for a chance under previous manager Gordon Strachan, but the opportunity rarely came.
McGregor has since established himself as one of the mainstays of Brendan Rodgers’ title-winning sides, featuring regularly in games domestically and in Europe.
The 25-year-old is now approaching 200 games for Celtic and also has a loan spell at Notts County under his belt.
Scotland manager Alex McLeish clearly sees him as an important part of his plans and McGregor feels better-placed now to deliver on the international stage.
He said: “I was disappointed. I was desperate to play. I was doing well at club level and scoring goals and sometimes football has a funny way of working in that you can chuck a player in there and he can do something.
“You know when you are doing well and there was a bit of talk about it at the time, but managers have got the players they trust and the team were doing well at that point. They were right up towards qualifying. You don’t have an argument when that’s the case and the boys are doing well. It was just a case of me biding my time.
“I had just sort of burst on to the Celtic scene again at that time scoring goals and playing well in big games, so to go straight into the internationals might have been a jump too much. You just never know in football. For me, it was just getting to that stage and really building on my Celtic career first.
“Now I have 200 games for Celtic and feel established, so I try to kick on and be a part of the Scotland stuff. It wasn’t to be for me on that occasion, but that will drive me on to try and get Scotland success in the future.”
McGregor is likely to feature in the crucial Uefa Nations League double-header, starting with Albania in Shkoder tomorrow and Israel at Hampden Park on Tuesday.
While he is grateful to have the opportunity to play for Scotland, McGregor will never stop feeling he is living the dream.
He said: “I’ve always enjoyed playing football. Sometimes it gets almost too serious at times and people get down about it. But I’ve played football all my life since the ages of three and four and it’s all I wanted to do. I never had any other job on my mind.
“From when I was four, I wanted to play football, so that genuine enjoyment for football and to have a career in the game at the highest level means you sometimes don’t know how lucky you are.
“You are here, living the dream of when you were three or four. To not have a smile on your face doing that would be incredible.
“Football moves so quickly and you have those ups and downs, so you have to keep yourself on a level playing field and make sure you do not get too up or down when things are going well or against you.
“You try to stay at a