Andy Robertson is poised to become only the second man to win 100 caps for Scotland in the country’s more than 150 years of international football. The Scotland captain could reach the century mark in Saturday’s Nations League game against North Macedonia, edging him ever closer to the all-time cap record.
Kenny Dalglish is the only man to have pulled on the Scotland shirt more times than Robertson, with “King Kenny” still topping the list on 102 caps. That mark could be eclipsed by his friend come November, should the 32-year-old feature in each of Scotland’s remaining Nations League games this year. It is fitting that Robertson is the one closing in, given the friendship the pair have forged. “He always says ‘you’ve got millions more games; Nations League, what’s that? They didn’t have that in my day!'” Robertson joked on the Stick to Football podcast recently. “I think he might bring up a ratio for years-to-games-played so he’s still on top. It’s obviously something that’s been on my radar for a while now. When you get to 80-odd caps, you start to look up.” Dalglish can console himself that his record of 30 goals, held jointly with Denis Law, is safely out of Robertson’s reach. Among current players, however, John McGinn sits only eight caps behind Robertson, meaning Scotland’s men’s centurion club could soon have three members.
Since being handed the armband by Alex McLeish after Scott Brown retired in 2018, Robertson has captained Scotland 29 times more than any other player. At the time he had earned just 22 caps and was only 24. Now he is the only man to have led Scotland out at three major finals, reaching that milestone at the World Cup this summer. Scotland and Napoli midfielder Scott McTominay said: “He’s such a great captain and he’s got that good balance between being one of the senior players and saying you need to wake up if you’re not playing well. Then he’s also got the personable side, organising things with the manager, helping young players and stuff. He’s brilliant with that, brilliant.”
Robertson has played under four different permanent Scotland bosses across a 12-year international career. It was Gordon Strachan who plucked him from the under-21s to hand him his debut as a 19-year-old in a win over Poland in March 2014. McLeish made him captain in 2018, calling him the “outstanding candidate” and an “inspirational figure”; he has since played twice for new boss Sebastien Pocognoli. He also played one game under interim manager Malky Mackay in a friendly against the Netherlands at Pittodrie in 2017. But it is Steve Clarke’s seven-year stint that Robertson will be mainly associated with, having played 68 times for him, all of them as captain, as the pair led Scotland to three major tournaments. “He’s been a fantastic captain for Scotland,” Clarke said at the World Cup. “He’s worked ever so hard for the country and he leads the group like the leader he is – and he’s very, very important to me and the squad.”
Given his longevity, it is perhaps no surprise that Robertson also tops Scotland’s assist charts since his debut in 2014. His rampaging runs and crosses from left-back have been pivotal for a Scotland side that has never been free-scoring during his career. Although he has only four goals for his country, a couple have mattered greatly: his strike against Cyprus helped ensure the Clarke era started with a win in 2019, and his last-minute winner against Poland in 2024 temporarily staved off Nations League relegation. That was the last time Robertson scored for Scotland.
Over the piece, Robertson’s 99 caps are spread fairly evenly among friendlies and qualification games, although crucially he has also played nine times in major tournaments. What will rankle is that there is only one win among those nine – June’s victory over Haiti in Boston at the World Cup. Overall, his Scotland career has been characterised by consistency: he has started 97 of his 99 caps, played an average of 83 minutes per game, and rarely been substituted, without missing a camp in three years. At 32 and still playing at the top level, the only real question seems to be how many Scotland caps he will end up with.