At Celtic, we have had an array of captains and leaders at the club that have gone on to become club legends.
The most obvious one is the late, great Billy McNeill. Celtic supporters don’t need me to tell them about the history of Billy. That speaks for itself. The man was a giant in the world of football, not just Celtic.
For the older(ish) generation like me, Paul McStay, Danny McGrain and Roy Aitken were all iconic in the 80’s and 90’s and for the younger generation, we had the likes of Paul Lambert, Jackie McNamara and Neil Lennon.
And you obviously can’t miss out Scott Brown and Callum McGregor. Every captain mentioned has different leadership qualities which brought varying degrees of success to the club but what all of them had in abundance was a real battling quality.
Alistair Johnston is only weeks into his career at Celtic, but is showing his own leadership qualities on international duty as the right-back seeks to resolve a long-standing funding dispute between the Canadian National Women’s side and the country’s governing body.
The National Women’s side saw their funding slashed for 2023 and released a statement back in February claiming they were being unfairly treated compared to the men’s side.
Johnston has been front and centre in trying to find a resolution to the crisis and speaking to mainstream outlet CBC Sports this week, Johnston said, “It’s about finding that balance. You’ve got to focus on your club, but at the same time, we understand it’s not just about our national team — it’s about all of Canada Soccer.
“At the end of the day, we know that if we take care of what we need to take care of on the field, it helps everything off the field as well. We want to be a world-class organization on the pitch and off the pitch, and if we can really take care of business on the pitch, it makes everyone’s life a little bit easier. And puts pressure on other people to run the business like a world-class business.”
Ange has a built dressing room of strong characters – Johnston included
One thing that can be said about this current Celtic squad is it has players in there with strong personalities and characters.
Ange added Joe Hart to the squad at a time when Callum McGregor needed support early into his captaincy and Cameron Carter-Vickers has brought steel and determination to a backline that looked weak at the start of his tenure.
Ange has clearly identified that Johnston, too, can bring leadership qualities to the team and he has already started to display these domestically as well as on the international scene.
In other news, International break latest as 3 Celtic stars come through unscathed; Ange sigh of relief.
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