He joined Bournemouth after leaving Celtic. He became a father more lately. Additionally, he participated in another 25 games for Scotland, scoring just one more goal. Ryan Christie acknowledges how irritating he finds this particular aspect.
His beautiful goal on that unforgettable night in Belgrade was his fourth in five appearances for the international team. The 28-year-old has just once since then scored for the national team, on a penalty kick winner against the Republic of Ireland a year ago.
It might be motivating for him to go back to the nation where he scored his first Scotland goal. In his tenth appearance, Christie scored to help his team defeat Cyprus 2-1 in a Euro 2020 qualifying match in Nicosia four years ago. This week, as preparations for tomorrow’s Euro 2024 qualifier in Larnaca began, he thought, “I could do with a few more, the goals seem to have stopped of late.”
“Scoring goals is amazing and when you do it at international level it’s even better,” he added. “I’m desperate to add to my tally and help the team out because Scotty has been doing it all himself.”
Scotty is Scott McTominay, who scored five goals in his previous four games and has recently emerged as the new Ally McCoist. This Scotland team has scored plenty of goals, which hasn’t always been the case.
John McGinn also makes his fair share of contributions from midfield while even the auxiliary is now doing well upfront. In his last two Millwall games, Kevin Nisbet has two goals.
Christie wants to start weighing in again. “To this day, that Serbia goal is the favourite in my career,” he said. “That kind of speaks volumes. Any time you score for your country is great. I even loved scoring the penalty in the Ireland game. When you’re scoring to help the team achieve something it’s a nice feeling.”
A victory over Temuri Ketsbaia’s Cyprus tomorrow night would be excellent. The thousands of Tartan Army members who have traveled to the Sunshine Island would celebrate it as a decisive finals-winning strike. After some restless nights apart, new father Christie is now feeling revitalized.
“I’m feeling really good,” he said. “We’ve got a new manager at Bournemouth [Andoni Iraola] and I’m loving working under him.”
Christie has scored once so far this season and is aiming for more while being used primarily in his preferred No 10 position under the Spaniard. It should come as no surprise that his next goal will be in honor of Leon, who was born soon after Georgia was defeated earlier this summer.
“I was worried he’d appear while we were over there,” he recalled. “That was only about a week to the due date and Graeme Jones (SFA head of high-performance) had my phone every day at training.
“In fact, the day before the Georgia game I was doing some shooting drills and he came running over with my phone. I thought, ‘Oh my God it’s happening!’” Turns out it was just his Dad, Charlie, calling. Leon and mother Georgie Bell held on until a few days afterwards. Now it’s Christie’s turn to deliver.
