A wait on our shoulders
No offence, big man, but we could have done without you and your team at the moment.
I mean, Israel versus Scotland in Haifa on Thursday, followed by a friendly against Portugal at Hampden on a Sunday night?
And Portugal's star turn won't even be there to draw a crowd because he's otherwise pre-occupied with altogether more serious business elsewhere.
It's hardly the stuff of "Hold the front page," far less the back page, is it Eck ?
Meanwhile, the much maligned Premiership has caught fire at the top end of the table and gone scary at the cut-throat end.
To watch Celtic and Hibs each score six goals against St. Johnstone and Hamilton Accies respectively was to be re-introduced to the thrill of it all so far as our flagship competition was concerned.
To see the league leaders, Hearts, dismantled by Rangers in front of a capacity crowd at Ibrox vouched for the re-emergence of a one time basket case of a club under the guise of title challengers.
We're getting to the stage where it looks as if Aberdeen, the perennial runners-up to Celtic in recent years, could struggle to make the top four this season.
Neil Doncaster, the SPFL's Chief Executive, might be as popular as income tax after the fiasco of the Betfred Cup semi-final scheduling, but he does know how to close out a deal and make money for his member clubs.
He would be back at home with the family in England if that were not the reason for keeping him in employment.
And Doncaster can surely be relied upon to re-negotiate a bumper television deal with the game's main broadcasters when using a re-energised Premiership as bait.
The mockery is over. The last one horse race would appear to have been run.
Tradition has made a startling comeback and unless I am very much mistaken that means Celtic and Rangers will soon be slugging it out for the title in the old fashioned way.
Unless Hearts can recover from their own wholesale confusion at Ibrox on Sunday and Hibs can remain the entertaining side that they are while adding consistency to their indisputably attractive game.
In which case, a four way fight would be doubly appealing to the telly folks who write the cheques that pay the bills.
They got it in the neck for dictating that October 28 should be the date for two cup semi-finals in an arrangement that brought out Scottish football's spiteful side.
But if recovery time for Celtic and Rangers after their Europa League commitments was an issue then it has been shown to be a minor complication.
Celtic haven't played as well all season as they did in the first half at McDiarmid Park on Sunday.
Two and a half days after a bruising defeat from Salzburg in Austria, Celtic mesmerised St. Johnstone, scored goals that were better than the one which had gone before, and reduced the home players to lashing out at the opposition who had reduced them to bit part players.
Rangers used the adrenaline rush they had gained from defeating Rapid Vienna to replicate the team, the atmosphere and the result which vanquished the Austrians when they faced Hearts.
What's all the fuss about?
If you play well enough then energy levels are clearly the least of your worries.
Rangers scored their nineteenth goal of the season at Ibrox on Sunday.
Celtic recorded their biggest ever league win under Brendan Rodgers on the same day.
And before anyone says the two most wealthy clubs in the land beat those less fortunate than themselves let's give credit where it's due.
The majority of the goals scored by them were works of art and things of individual, or collective, beauty.
They are driving the negotiations for a record deal out of the television broadcasters.
You don't need to show any gratitude for that if you don't wish, but at least acknowledge that is the case.
You've got two weeks to think about it while we're forced to wait due to whatsit and thingmy playing Scotland