Anthony Ralston is used to being doubted, but he is certainly a redoubtable competitor.
The Celtic full back seems to have been fighting to prove he belongs on the stages where some of the top managers in the Scottish game have deployed him since he first came onto the Celtic scene.
It is at international level where questions are currently being asked of Ralston after he followed up his fraught European Championship campaign in a Scotland jersey by clumsily conceding a penalty in last week’s Nations League defeat to Poland.
What that rather masked was an excellent all-round display from Ralston, as he allied defensive diligence with courage and composure on the ball. For the most part, of course.
Despite that personal disappointment though, there was more of the same in Lisbon on Sunday night, and this time he didn’t blot the copybook, even up against a man who it must have been tempting to barrel into on a few occasions.
Rafael Leao just kept coming at Ralston down the Portuguese left, but Ralston stood his ground against the AC Milan superstar time and time again, and like most of the Scots on the night, could be proud of his contribution despite the late defeat.
There may ultimately not have been any points garnered from the evening in the Estadio Da Luz, but certainly for Ralston, there were plenty of valuable lessons and confidence banked from his tangle with Leao.
“He’s a good player and I’ll learn from games like that, coming up against those types of opponents,” Ralston said.
“I relish it and take it head on. This is the level I want to play my football at.
“From a personal point of view, I respect that he’s a quality player. But on the pitch, I’ve got a job to do against a winger, one v one and I felt I did fine.
“I’ll take confidence from that and use it going forward in my career. Games like that, against that quality, can only help me for Celtic and Scotland in the future.
“It’s great experience for me to play against a player like Leao. I need to learn from it and use it both at Celtic and when I’m called upon for Scotland.”
Ralston feels there was also plenty to take from the night in the heat of Lisbon for the national side as a collective, despite their recent miserable run of results now stretching to just one win from their last 14 games.
“We’ll take a lot of positives from that as a team and as a squad,” he said.
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“Portugal knew they were in a tough game on Sunday night, which is credit to us.
“But of course, there was also huge disappointment because not only did we believe we could win it, but at 1-1 we felt we could get away with a positive result after that performance.
“To not get that is the biggest disappointment. But we deserve credit because they’re a top side and we went there and gave them a proper game.
“We were the better team at 1-1. But we didn’t go there with any other thought apart from getting a victory.
“We know they’re a top-quality team but we focused on ourselves. We’re disappointed we didn’t get the result we deserved.
“Against quality players, you’re going to be asked to defend, and we did that. That’s what’s driving the disappointment - we defended so well as a unit and it didn’t look like Portugal had many answers. But two really good goals won it for them. That’s the level we’re at.
“We have to focus on the positives. Against a right good side, we gave them a really good game.
“We should have got more but we’ll use that to drive us on for the games next month.”
