Andy Irving will need no one to tell him that breaking into Scotland’s midfield at this point in time is a task which could be compared to splitting the atom.
As if that raft of Serie A stars wasn’t enough — Scott McTominay, Billy Gilmour, Lewis Ferguson and Lennon Miller — you have English Premier League mainstays in Ryan Christie and John McGinn for company.
Then, just for good measure, there’s the old stager in Kenny McLean, the self-proclaimed Mayor of Norwich and an eternal hero with the Tartan Army following THAT sublime strike from the halfway line was against Denmark back in November.
You need something about you to believe that you belong in that sort of esteemed company but, rest assured, the unassuming 25-year-old from Portobello won’t be suffering from any inferiority complex this week.
Irving has earned his stripes the hard way by taking the most circuitous route imaginable to international football. He’s voluntarily exposed himself to all the game can throw at him, survived and prospered.
And having come this far, being part of the squad which travels across the Atlantic this summer is now the next logical step.
Scotland midfielder Andy Irving has been a hit for Sparta Prague since arriving in January
He is a journeyman in the literal sense — together with Scott McKenna, one of only two men in Steve Clarke’s 26-man squad to have played in five different countries. This is no accident.
A Hearts’ academy graduate whose left-foot made him the stand-out player of his age group at Riccarton, he went on loan to Berwick Rangers in the rough and tumble of League Two before alighting at Falkirk, then stuck in the Championship.
Five years ago, when most in his position would have stayed put, his sense of adventure took him from Gorgie, where he was closing in on his 50th appearance, to the obscurity of the third tier of German football with Turkgucu Munchen. That episode would end in tears following insolvency yet would be grist to his mill.
Mercifully, the player had done enough in his short spell in Bavaria to catch the eye of Austrian top-flight side Klagenfurt and was rehabilitated across the border.
West Ham subsequent liked what they saw and signed him. Just not quite enough to want to tell the world about it via the customary unveiling.
Somewhat mysteriously, Irving immediately returned to Klagenfurt on loan only to move back to the capital a year later and belatedly announce himself to the Hammers fans across 18 appearances, seven of which came in the Premier League.
He impressed in claret and blue to the extent that many supporters were perplexed as to why he was allowed to leave in January when Sparta Prague came calling.
Irving faces stiff competition in the Scotland midfield but has become a squad regular of late
That sense of regret will only be heightened by his early displays in the Czech capital where his cultured left peg looks to have found a welcome home.
If he’s given the chance to add to his solitary cap across the games with Japan and the Ivory Coast in the coming days, the quiet man of the squad is eminently capable of causing a stir and perhaps forcing some established names to look over their shoulders.
Irving’s story to date flies in the face of the oft-made accusation that Clarke is loathe to select players whom he’s not familiar with.
Some 18 months ago, the midfielder was very much a left-field choice in the manager’s latest Nations League squad on the back of a few fleeting substitute appearances for West Ham.
Describing the player’s path to the point as ‘a little bit different’, Clarke was clearly impressed with how the former Hearts man had taken himself out of his comfort zone to see what he was made of.
‘The first time I came across Andy, I was managing with Kilmarnock. He was playing for a Hearts team as a very young man, still growing into his frame a little bit,’ Clarke said at the time.
‘I think he’s surprising everybody with the choices that he made to move abroad, in a roundabout way, ending up in the English Premier League.’
The midfielder took a big gamble when he left Hearts to join now-defunct Turkgucu Munchen
There an old saying in football that every player eventually finds their level but there are exceptions to that.
Whether through injury or a loss of form, some fall off the radar and just never return to stage their talent deserves. Irving wasn’t blinded to this danger when he let his Tynecastle contract run down and sign for a club which were plankton in the game’s great sea.
He surely must have questioned the wisdom of that life choice when he first learned of Turkgucu Munchen’s financial troubles while reading a German football magazine on a winter training camp, with the dots being joined by club officials soon after.
Turkgucu weren’t permitted to play any matches after the bombshell news officially arrived, with the midfielder briefly returning home to Edinburgh to gather his thoughts. He remained phlegmatic about what happened.
‘Everybody was devastated,’ he said. ‘It was tough. There was a meeting with the whole squad and the upper management of the club. That’s how they broke it to us.
‘It was still eight months in an amazing city. I picked up another language, lived alone, learned a lot and developed a lot as a person.’
You wonder what part that nightmarish episode four years back played in getting him to the point where he’s now on the cusp of the World Cup. What’s that old saying — what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger?
Irving was a sleeper hit with West Ham but fared well against Palmer in narrow loss to Chelsea
It would certainly have flashed through his mind a year ago when he was serenaded by Hammers fans as he put on a sparkling display in a narrow loss to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
‘You’re just a s*** Andy Irving!’ they also told Cole Palmer after the Blues’ talisman fired a shot well over the bar. All the best compliments are backhanded.
It took Irving until last June to finally realise his full international ambitions when he replaced McGinn just before the hour mark of the friendly win in Liechtenstein.
A short hop across the border from Munich, the tiny Rheinpark Stadium in Vaduz was another significant staging post on a colourful journey. For all concerned, the beauty is that it’s only just beginning.
