Halfway through a question, Kieran Tierney lets out the sort of inward chuckle usually reserved for when childhood misdemeanours are being retold at Christmas dinner.
“I’m buzzing nobody asks that now,” he says, accurately forming the rest of the question in his mind from the two subtle clues: “Andy Robertson” and “Scotland”.
Things have clicked the last three years but for a long time, any mention of Tierney and Robertson in the same breath almost always preceded talk about the poisoned chalice of Scotland having two elite left-backs in a malfunctioning team.
It dominated every discussion from Gordon Strachan’s tenure in 2016, through to Alex McLeish in 2018 and well into the second year of Steve Clarke’s reign in 2020 as Tierney’s injury issues obscured the overall plan.
What seemed a blessing had become a curse.
It seemed unthinkable to leave either out, but how do you accommodate both without compromising the balance of the team?
“We’d say to each other before interviews, ‘How many minutes before someone asks us about the formation?’ Both of us were sick of it,” says Tierney. “It has worked out. I moved… I was always the one to move!”.
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The Arsenal defender can joke now but he was shunted to right-back in a back four by Strachan and McLeish, which limited his game.
Since the Euro 2020 play-off final victory against Serbia in November 2020, however, he has found his home as the left centre-back in Clarke’s wing-back system.
“People said a back five doesn’t work after a couple of games. We’ve had good results but not just down to the defence, it’s because a lot of players are playing with each other regularly.
“Chopping and changing squads all the time (means it’s) hard to gel. What we’ve seen is a team that has gelled together and there is a core of us who are always there. It’s a club feeling, which is brilliant.”
Tierney has been crucial to Scotland reaching their first two major tournaments since 1998, dovetailing with Liverpool’s Robertson on his outside as they did in midweek for Scotland’s opening goal against Finland.
“I love that left centre-back position and I love playing with him,” says Tierney.
“We’ve got that connection where we know where we’re going to be and if one goes, the other knows to stay. We’ll interchange or find each other with a long pass. That comes from playing with each other a lot.
Tierney (centre) says he and Robertson (left) have a connection when playing (KOEN VAN WEEL/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)
“The first person to play me centre-back was Brendan Rodgers in a back four (for Celtic) against Kilmarnock in 2017. He made me captain that night (the youngest in Celtic’s history at just 20) and I scored and assisted.
“When I was playing centre-back, I’d always speak to John Kennedy (Celtic assistant). He was the guy I went to with questions about positioning. He’s someone I’m very close to and still keep in contact with. He’s been important in my career and he’s someone I’ll always have no matter where I am.”
Tierney is one of the first names on the team sheet for Scotland, but he has only played 32 times at club level the last two seasons, recently returning to Arsenal from a year on loan at Real Sociedad.
Scotland duty has taken on even more significance.
“The camps have been brilliant for me. When I wasn’t playing at Arsenal, I would say to myself, ‘Three weeks to the Scotland squad — you’ll meet a lot of your pals you’ve grown up with at different academies or at Celtic.’
“Steve Clarke has been amazing for me the past two years. He’s put a lot of trust in me.
“He’ll phone or text me. It can just be, ‘Well done today, looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks’ or ‘Hope the injury isn’t bad’. After camps, he’ll say well done or have a wee call.
“He doesn’t speak for hours and give you all the compliments in the world. He’ll just tell you one or two wee things you need to hear and give you the confidence you need.”
Tierney has been on loan at Real Sociedad from Arsenal (Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images)
Scotland have suffered a slew of tournament-ending injuries with Bologna captain Lewis Ferguson — voted the best midfielder in Serie A this season — Aaron Hickey, Nathan Patterson and Lyndon Dykes all missing out.
Tierney is only five games away from a half-century of caps but it looked like he may be denied the chance to play in Germany this summer. Having suffered two hamstring lay-offs earlier in the season, he picked up an abductor problem in late April.
He was able to return for Real Sociedad’s final four matches, but an element of paranoia before a major tournament would seem natural.
“If you’re going into training and games thinking, ‘I don’t want to be injured for the Euros’, that’s when something can happen. I think I had to go and be free.
“I did all my physio, recovery, rehab, everything I possibly could do to give myself the best chance.”
Even though he spent last season living in northern Spain, he had a reminder of home at the Reale Arena as Real Sociedad’s ultras section includes a special flag for him from his first game.
“I noticed the Saltires behind the goal as soon as I arrived,” says Tierney.
“People say they weren’t there before me but a lot of Basque people relate to Scotland because of the independence movements.
“When I was less than 10, I remember asking my dad (at Celtic Park) what that flag is and he told me it was the Basque Country.
“It’s not until you’re older you understand it and see the similarities with Celtic fans. It was a nice wee coincidence.”
Tierney still has an open invite to visit the Celtic supporters’ club in Bilbao.
Most fans live in hope he will return to Glasgow one day, having played the majority of his football away from his boyhood club since leaving for Arsenal in 2019.
“I don’t regret it. I still miss it but I knew life would never be the same,” he says.
“I was living my dream. Being a footballer is the dream but playing for Celtic was the ultimate. I left that to go and challenge myself in the Premier League and come up against the best to see how I’d cope.
“If I go back, I want to be feeling how I did there before. I’ll be a different player to what I was, as I’ve been away for years, but I wouldn’t want to go back if I wasn’t feeling 100 per cent in my body.
“I know the intensity and the demand to win so, if I go back, it will be when I’m still feeling good.”
(Top photo: Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
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