The sanitised environment of the football academy has taken precedence in the rearing of a lot of young players but Scott McKenna's journey to the heart of the Scotland national team has involved rather more stress than most.
First, the player who has been lauded as marrying the modern elements of the game with a traditional robustness, was introduced to the eye-opening world of junior football and then he found himself on the receiving end of Aberdeen legend Willie Miller’s caustic tongue.
“You are feeling, he can’t speak to me like that,” recalled McKenna with a smile. “But as you grow up you get it and it stood us in good stead for when we went full time and people are shouting at you and getting on your case.”
Miller’s expertise wasn’t all there was to contend with. Growing up in Kirriemuir, just outside Forfar, McKenna trained with junior sides Kirrie Thistle and Broughty Athletic in order to avoid having to make the journey to Aberdeen three times a week.
“It probably toughened me up,” said McKenna. “It was nowhere the level of Aberdeen but to get that physical development at 14, 15 helped me. They were probably taking it easy with me being a kid but I was always trying to shove them off the ball. I couldn’t do it but I would go in as hard as I could. If I went in too hard I would know about it. They were more streetwise and could hurt me if they wanted but it never really happened.”
Miller has become one of McKenna’s admirers as the defender has produced the kind of form that had Celtic and Aston Villa tabling significant offers this summer in an effort to entice the Pittodrie club to sell. Neither were successful and Aberdeen’s decision to offer the player another bumper contract after the window closed suggests an effort to protect their prize asset. And while Miller has been complimentary about McKenna from his pundit’s chair, the 22-year-old can remember a time when the legendary Don’s words carried a sting.
“He coached me for a year or two, at the 17s,” said the defender. “I just remember the first couple of weeks everyone was a bit taken aback by how he was. But then we all came to realise he was doing it for our own benefit. We were young kids, 14, 15 and he was brutally honest with us and I think it is the wakening you need when you are at that age. Things are plain sailing when you are at that age, you don’t tend to get a lot of criticism. It kinds of set us up for going into full time.
“I have bumped into him a couple of times [since breaking into Aberdeen and Scotland team]. He is quite honest and he will just give me thoughts from his point of view and if I think it is worth taking on then I will do that. But obviously he is someone who has played at the highest level with Aberdeen and Scotland. The career he had was fantastic.”
Miller was capped 65 times for Scotland and enjoyed a formidable defensive partnership with Alex McLeish for both club and country. Injury has deprived McKenna of pairing up alongside his fellow Pittodrie stopper Mikey Devlin for Scotland this week but given McKenna's speed in rising to prominence with both club and country, he has admitted he has yet to feel entirely at ease within the national squad.
“I am not so nervous but I am still very quiet,” he acknowledged. “I just sit and listen to what the other boys are saying. I am not the vocal one and I am quite happy being like that just now. I am comfortable but I know there are boys in here I can learn off of. Though I sit in the background I am more vocal at training and get stuck in. Otherwise I keep myself to myself. There are obviously a lot of boys in the group who have played at a high level.”
Should McKenna’s career continue its current trajectory it seems inevitable that he will invite further attention from elsewhere. The 22-year-old has also been linked with Norwich and Swansea but he is wary of being distracted of any chat about where his long-term future may lie.
“I think that is most people’s ambition [to play in England],” he said. “It’s been a good year but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. If I take my eye off the ball it would be quite easy to slip out of the Aberdeen team and then that would seem a million miles away.”
His immediate ambitions lie at Hampden both for Tuesday’s Nation’s League game against Israel and the BetFred League Cup final next month.
“At Aberdeen we have got a cup final to look forward to and hopefully that’s a game we can go and win,” he said. “I want to focus on doing well for Aberdeen and hopefully the rewards will come after that. If we go on to win the cup we’ll have beat Hibs, Rangers and Celtic three of the best teams in Scotland. That would show how well we’ve done.”
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