Quintin Jardine's blog

I’ve met Craig Levein, the Scottish national football manager on a few occasions. I like him and I rate him very highly as a coach. People in his position are under pressure from the moment they’re appointed, unless they’re over-the-hill Italian martinets with contracts so bloody lucrative that their employers can’t afford to sack them. The rest can’t afford to take chances, and that probably explains why Craig’s original squad for a forthcoming Scotland friendly international included only three players drawn from within our domestic leagues. I’m not knocking him for that, it’s how it goes. However there was a day when we had things called League Internationals, where the participants were home-based. There was nothing in the rules even then that said foreign-born players couldn’t be selected, but they rarely were. How about bringing them back, guys, so that people who choose, or are compelled by  circumstances, to stay and play in their homeland have a chance to pull on the blue shirt.