John McGinn will win his 92nd Scotland cap on Saturday night in Skopje, a milestone that lifts him to third on the country’s all-time appearance list. He reaches it with 21 goals from 91 caps, fifth on Scotland’s all-time scoring chart and one behind the great Lawrie Reilly. For a squad’s most cherished figure, the numbers describe a career of rare substance.
The question is what his current Scotland form adds to that legacy. McGinn’s talismanic influence has been on the wane for a little while now. None of the pride, passion or phenomenal work-rate has gone, but the game-defining moments have been scarce, saved for the odd glimpse. The double deflection that gave Scotland their only goal at the World Cup, against Haiti, stands out — and the fact that his previous Scotland goal came close to two years earlier frames the wider point.
Speaking at the Todor Proeski Stadium in Skopje, McGinn is compelling on the weight that comes with his status. “The nature of the beast is, at club and country, you have a lot of responsibility, a lot of weight on your shoulders,” he said. “When you do something well, you’re the best thing since sliced bread. When you don’t have a great couple of games, or you’re not producing assists, or you make a poor pass in a pivotal moment of the game, you’re automatically not good enough.”
He points to his age — he turns 32 later this month — as part of the explanation. “It’s the nature of being my age,” he added. “It’s the nature of competing with Scotland and with Aston Villa. I take the praise with a big smile. Any criticism that comes, it’s just part of it.”
Asked whether a 91-cap colossus considers himself undroppable, McGinn is emphatic. “No, no. I’m certainly not undroppable,” he replied. “I remember Steve Clarke put me on the bench and I had absolutely no issue with that. I don’t think anyone in the squad is undroppable. It’s the challenge to anyone coming into the squad and I encourage that challenge. The competition is always there, whether that’s someone who’s 20, 21 or in their 30s. The best players will play for Scotland. If the manager said to me, ‘You’re on the bench, I need you for five minutes, ten minutes, zero minutes or 90-plus’, we’re here to represent Scotland.”
Whatever the recent lull in a Scotland shirt, there is little debate about what McGinn has become at Aston Villa. He was central to getting them out of the Championship in 2019 and keeping them in the Premier League in 2020, to dragging them from 17th to 11th to 14th to 7th to 4th in the English top flight, and to bringing Champions League football. He captained the side and scored when they won a European trophy last season, and he broke their European goalscoring record. He was also one of the ones who stayed when Jack Grealish, Douglas Luiz, Ollie Watkins, Emi Martinez and Youri Tielemans did not. Some call him the best Villa captain since Dennis Mortimer, who led the league-winning team of 1981 and the European Cup-winning side of 1982.
Robertson’s 100th cap awaits this weekend, and with eight more needed after North Macedonia, McGinn is following closely behind. His motivation has not faded. “What keeps me going is how I felt on that first night against Denmark — the pride, the emotion,” he said of his 2016 debut. “When you’re picked to play for your country, you never know when it’s going to be your last, so you don’t take it for granted. Quite possibly tomorrow night, you never know. It could be the last time you’re chosen.”
He is also clear-eyed about managing the tougher spells. “If I was younger, I would have been straight on Instagram or straight on Twitter,” he said. “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but at the end of the day, you keep your head down, you keep working hard. If you go through a barren spell or you go through a spell where you’re not doing too well, you need to find that inner self-belief, which I feel like I have. The older you get, you learn how to manage tough moments better. They get worse, though. The lows get lower and the highs become less high. But you certainly deal with it a lot better when you’re older.”