There's probably a bit of him that misses the madness of it all. You don’t spend almost 50 years in football without developing a sadomasochistic streak.
But, for the most part, Gordon Strachan is happy to be well out of the Old Firm firing line. Especially in weeks such as this. On Sunday Glasgow’s feuding neighbours will go toe-to-toe in a potentially titanic Scottish Cup showdown at Hampden. And in this week’s semi-final special episode of our Off the Record podcast, former Celtic boss Strachan has lifted the lid on the emotional torture involved before, during and after managing on derby day.
He said: “There’s a point where you’ve finished whatever game you’ve been playing, then you have a day when you think, ‘Oh, it’s coming up, the Old Firm game’. So you’ve probably got a day to reflect on it and that’s the day when you’re probably a wee bit wary. You think, ‘I wish the game was finished now, I knew the result and I knew what’s going to happen with the rest of my life! Am I going to be in a job? How many people are waiting for me outside the stadium when the game’s finished?’ And you think, ‘Right OK, is there an escape route out of this stadium where nobody can see me?’ But once the training starts, it’s good fun. You take on the challenge.”
