Anya Still High On Germany Goal

*Photo by Jeff Holmes * Scotland winger Ikechi Anya admits he will never grow tired of watching his stunning solo goal against world champions Germany. The Watford forward momentarily drew the Dark Blues level in Dortmund earlier this month after galloping beyond the host defence to fire beyond Bayern Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer. There was no happy ending for the 26-year-old, though, as Joachim Low's side pulled ahead again with Thomas Muller's second goal of the game to claim an opening Euro 2016 qualifying win. But Anya admits he is still operating in a haze after netting against a side who had just claimed the biggest prize in football with their Maracana triumph over Argentina three months before. It was the crowning point on a long journey that has taken the Glasgow-born son of a Nigerian scientist and Romanian economist from the English non-league set-up to the international stage. He said: "I've watched the goal a million times - and that's just today. I can't get enough of it. "From a personal point of view it would just validate all the hard work I did as an apprentice, when I would wake up at 5.30am each morning to get three different buses to training. "That work ethic comes from my father Chinasa. He was a big academic and wanted his children to be like that. It worked for my brother Chima because he's a doctor now, and that took a lot of hard work and sacrifice. "A lot of the player I am today is based on the experiences I've had. In this game, nothing comes your way easy and I've had to work hard to succeed." Anya's heroics at the Signal Iduna Park came almost a year to the day after he made his Scotland debut as a second-half substitute against Belgium. But his path to a Scotland jersey was not easy. Released by Wycombe in the summer of 2007, the winger was forced to drop out of the Football League to join Halesowen Town but made his way back into the senior game two years later with the help of the Glenn Hoddle Academy when he signed for Northampton. A stint in Spain with the Sevilla and Celta Vigo B teams then came before his Watford move earned him a return to England. "Five years ago I was club-less and I never even thought about playing on the international stage," said Anya, speaking at Ibrox where Scotland play their next Euro 2016 qualifier against Georgia on October 11. "I had to work hard and keep believing I could succeed. "Then I remember my first call up and thinking, 'Oh if I could just get on against Belgium that would be amazing'. "So to start four days later against Macedonia and score was amazing. You just want to keep feeling like that so you just keep working hard to maintain that level and that's all I'm trying to do." The Hornets winger's impressive performances down the right wing for Gordon Strachan's side, couple with his boundless enthusiasm, has already marked him out as a Tartan Army favourite. Proof of that came when a tweet he posted after the Germany game - "I scored past Manuel Neuer!!!! Wowwww I can't even do that on FIFA£ - saw his follower numbers go through the roof. He said: "It's been kinda crazy since the Germany goal. We were disappointed with the result but looking at how we played, we warranted a point. "Scoring against the world champions was a big thing for me personally, because a lot of people have put me on their radar now. "Even from the Twitter context, it went crazy. I put that tweet out about Neuer and it got to the point where I couldn't read all the replies I was getting. People thought I was ignoring them but my iPad and my iPhone were freezing because there was so many. "I had something like 15,000 followers before the game, but only got about another 1,000 after the game. But then after the tweet I had like 10,000 more. Maybe a lot of people appreciated the tweet more than the goal. "It was just a joke but it went viral with 30,000 retweets. It was nice but I don't think I'd like to be one of those people with a million followers who get that on a daily basis. But once in a lifetime was a nice experience."