An exclusive chat with Christian Dailly
Christian Dailly at Hampden Park
Words Andrew Lawn
From the age of 15, all the way through to nearly 40, Christian Dailly’s drive came from one thing; getting that call to represent his country.
“I always felt so fortunate to be playing for Scotland and I really embraced it. I liked the fact that when you joined up with the national squad, everyone was in the same boat. It didn’t matter who you played for on a Saturday, now we’re all here for Scotland. Those moments, playing for my country, was what sustained my football career. Even after I left Rangers at 36 and went south to Charlton in League 1, my motivation was to get back into the Scotland squad”.
“Those two seasons at Charlton were some of the most enjoyable football of my career. I think that was the best football I played and I thought that if I could keep performing at that level than if the call from Scotland was to come again, I could do a job. That motivation to be ready in case the call came was driving me”.
“By the time I got to Southend, there was an offer on the table for another two years, which would have taken me to almost 41, but I knew at that point my international career was done, and I couldn’t see what might come next, so I thought it was time to call it a day and get out the way of a young lad coming through”.
That drive, coupled with his athleticism, natural talent and versatility saw Christian pick up 67 caps for Scotland, to go with his 35 for Scotland U21s, which remains a national record.
“When I was first called up to the Scottish national team it was as a striker. I moved positions a lot coming through. At U15, I played in the British Home Championships. First game we played the Republic of Ireland. I played up top and scored. Second game, against Wales, I played in the middle of midfield, then in the final game we beat an England team including Ryan Giggs and Nicky Barmby 1-0 at Old Trafford, with me playing centre-half”.
The first senior call came from Andy Roxborough, who included a 19-year-old Dailly in his squad as a front man for a 1994 World Cup qualifier in Estonia. But, despite that early exposure to the senior team, it would be a full four years and a switch to playing further back before he would finally make his senior debut, in a 1-0 defeat to Wales.
“Against Estonia, I was stripped and ready to come on for my debut, and then we scored and I was told to sit back down. It was a few years before that chance came again, but I always felt I had a chance to get back in. It was definitely a relief to get that first cap, I didn’t want to be remembered for having all those U21 caps but then never making the step up into the first team”.
Having made his debut, Christian quickly became a regular presence in the Scottish back line and that summer headed across the English Channel to France as part of the last Scotland squad to travel to a World Cup.
“France 98 was incredible. It was my best experience in football. Playing the defending World Champions in the opening game, and that whole thing with the bus to the game crawling through streets full of people. There are helicopters above you the whole way from the hotel to the ground and security guards everywhere, it is just massive”.
“A great thing about these tournaments is all the stresses and distractions of your everyday life are taken away, all you are thinking about is football and how you can give it everything. It’s the same with the Olympics and I think that’s why you see so many records broken at the Games, because competitors are completely free to dedicate themselves to their performance. That doesn’t happen in normal life, it can’t because you have family and friends and all of those things outside the game have an effect on your performance”.
“Those games were a huge highlight for me in my career, but you don’t really recognise the big moments in your career when you are in them. It is only when you look back that you appreciate them. Everything I achieved, the trophies, promotions all of it means a lot to me, each for different reasons”.
“One thing that really sticks with me is winning my 50th cap for Scotland. It was at home to the Dutch in a play-off for Euro 2003 and we won 1-0. That night was so special to me. My Dad, Alistair used to come to all my games and he was there that night and I gave him the cap. He died not long after, a few hours after we watched a Moldova game that I missed through injury together. He’s buried with that 50th cap. That’s really special for me and is a beautiful thing that’s printed in my mind”.
Those caps and those appearances at France 98 came as a defender, or defensive midfielder, but, as he alludes to, Christian’s career could have been quite different. His professional career started with a bang, scoring three in three as he burst onto the scene for Dundee United as a fresh-faced 16-year-old striker. However, having now made it into the first team environment, Christain was being told by his coaches to change what had made him successful up to that point.
“When I went full-time at Dundee United, I was playing up front, but everything I did was completely off-the-cuff. I felt invincible at that time, but I think I was a bit susceptible to coaching. I’m not saying I was stifled, but I was getting success doing it one way and the coaches were telling me to do something different. It felt like they were imposing rules on where and when to run, stuff like that. When I then did what I was being told was the ‘right thing to do’ I wouldn’t score. Perhaps I should have taken them more as options, rather than rules, but I was struggling to reconcile what was happening on the pitch with what I was being told. I was never sure if I’d had a good game or not”.
“I think what happened is, over time, a sort of psychological safety comes in and you start playing deeper and seeing different positions. I played a mix of at the back and up top for Dundee United. Then, when I signed for Derby I was playing in midfield for a spell. I did well and scored about four goals by Christmas, but then we picked up a couple of injuries at the back, and being reasonably athletic, they moved me back there as cover and I ended up staying there. It’s funny, safety and support has been a big thing in my career. Looking back I think I had what you might call a ‘safe career’ by playing predominantly at the back”.
That experience of coaching stuck with Christian and he says now has a strong bearing on his post-playing career coaching athletes.
“I come from an athletics background. As a boy I played football, but I did athletics too and through that skill acquisition is something that really interests me. What is skill? And, if you have it, what do you do with it? To answer that you have to look at human physiology. I did a PhD which looked at skill acquisition, from a numbers perspective. So, it looked at what skillful players were actually doing, not what people thought they were doing. Often, coaching orthodoxy was the opposite of what the numbers were telling you. Our bodies are complex systems and they’re all different. That means, from an exercise perspective you have to look at an individual’s muscle function. It comes back to the same thing I was struggling with at Dundee United, where you can’t impose a series of rules to follow. As a coach you have to give athletes a guide which they can use to find their own way. You also need to give them clarity, so they are not thinking about coaching points while performing. I learned that at Rangers”.
“The thing with Rangers, unlike any other club I played at, is that you absolutely have to win. Win, win, win. Every game. I loved that. It was brilliant for me. I remember one game at Ibrox where I was playing right back. I don’t remember who we were playing but we’re 1-0 up in the 90th minute. Steven Davis had the ball in front of me and I had the chance to overlap, but I’d always played for more conservative teams, so I decided to hold my position. Walter Smith was the Manager at the time and he leapt of the bench and came screaming ‘Fucking run Christian. GO’. The full-time whistle goes a few moments later and we head back into the changing room having won 1-0. We all sit down pretty pleased with ourselves and Walter comes thundering in. He is picking stuff up and throwing it around. He’s furious. He says ‘everyone sit down and fucking listen, because I want you to be in no fucking doubt. This is fucking Glasgow Rangers. We don’t settle for 1-fucking-0. We attack. If you get the chance to overlap like Christian had there at the end, you fucking go and we go and get another goal. We’re fucking Glasgow fucking Rangers’. And that’s how it was. Complete clarity”.
“Old Firm games are completely different to every other game. Unbelievably intense. That level of passion, it’s impossible to replicate because it is about a lot more than football. I didn’t enjoy playing in them, because they’re really quite stressful. I’m not sure you can enjoy them while you’re living it, but you really enjoy it when you look back. I played in the 2009 Rangers v Celtic Scottish League Cup Final and I was living in London at the time. I completely underestimated that the flight back would be full of Rangers and Celtic fans heading back too. We lost 2-0 in extra-time and I’m sat in this plane in my Rangers suit getting stick from both sets of fans. Rangers, because we lost and Celtic gloating over their win. Everyone hated me. It’s the worst flight I’ve ever been on”.
A passion for developing people and athletes oozes from Christian. We’re sitting in Hampden Park and as he talks his eyes light up and as he takes in the stadium, the scene of some of his proudest moments in football. As they do, his thoughts drift to how Scottish football can sustain their current high-performance.
“I think we have an advantage here in Scotland, because we are a smaller nation, we can look at the development pathway in a more joined up way than perhaps bigger nations can, and that gives us the opportunity to do something different. I’d like to see us embrace that and really grow Scottish football in an unique, innovative way. Can we provide kids high quality facilities, with good surfaces - rather than muddy bogs - to develop skill acquisition? Physicality is important, of course, but the game has moved on. Players need more than to just be big and strong to succeed”.
“I think with Scotland, it has always been a place that makes more than the sum of its parts. Often Scottish teams don’t have one standout star, but they contain a lot of good players, playing really closely together, in tight units. Scottish teams tend to play as teams, in which everybody does their job for the group. As a kid in Scotland, it’s perhaps been true that if you show off a little bit with tricks and skills, you’re booted about a bit”.
“The system we have is producing players. I came through it myself, but I almost feel I came through despite the system, not because of it. 99% of kids don’t make it, so let’s not look at the 1% who do, let’s see what perhaps didn’t work with the 99%”.
