Billy Gilmour’s momentous Friday evening began with excited messages to his parents as the Scotland team bus snaked its way towards Wembley, and ended with delighted celebrations among family and friends bursting with pride.
It was during the 93 minutes in between, in the midst of the much-anticipated resumption of football’s oldest international rivalry, that he found calm.
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The football pitch has always been where Gilmour feels most at ease, regardless of the stakes. Those who know him best say he believes he was born to be a footballer, and the experience of watching him makes it difficult to disagree; few players look as natural with a ball at their feet, so elegant and effortless in their technique. He completed 40 of his 44 attempted passes in 76 minutes, helping to give Scotland a level of assurance in midfield that a pedestrian England did not match.
This unshakeable calm is a big part of what has enabled Gilmour to produce Man of the Match displays on his full debuts in the Premier League, FA Cup, Champions League and European Championship. It is one of the attributes that has a growing number of people in the football world — as well as Andy Murray — convinced that he is destined for greatness. It also goes some way towards explaining why he will present Chelsea and Thomas Tuchel with one of their trickier decisions this summer.
Gilmour’s remarkable calm on the pitch is rivalled only by his frustration when he is kept away from it, and there has been a fair bit of that at Chelsea this season. Tuchel talked him out of pursuing a loan move in January, and did eventually repay that decision with just enough minutes in the final stretch of the season to convince Steve Clarke to include him in Scotland’s 26-man squad for this tournament. But the revival that ultimately led to unexpected Champions League glory was built on a more established midfield.
Tuchel made it clear early on that Gilmour was the fourth squad option to play in his midfield “double six”, and the performances of the men in front of him justified the pecking order. N’Golo Kante was the key player in Chelsea becoming Kings of Europe again, and he might win the Ballon d’Or this year. Jorginho has played some of the most impressive football of his career next to the Frenchman in recent months and now anchors a dangerous Italy side, while Mateo Kovacic also looked back to his best until injury derailed his momentum in the lead-up to Porto.
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Gilmour and his family made the most of the Champions League final experience, and he treasures his winners’ medal, having contributed to Chelsea’s run with two appearances in the group stage. He knows the standard of competition he faces every day at Cobham to make himself important to Tuchel in the short term, but he also knows he is good enough to play more football than he has this season. His teammates at club and international level know it too.
“He didn’t surprise me — I know what he is like as a player,” Mason Mount, who tussled with Gilmour directly several times during a feisty first half at Wembley, said after the match. “We had a good battle and every time he plays he seems to get man of the match — he has done it the few times he played at Chelsea.
“He gets chucked in at the deep end sometimes and he’s always swimming. I always watched his development and he is going to keep getting better and better and that is good for him personally, for the club and also at international level.”
At the final whistle, Mount and Ben Chilwell were among the first to congratulate Gilmour, and the genuine pride they took in their Chelsea teammate’s success was obvious — just as it was last month when Chilwell filmed the young midfielder’s delighted reaction to his inclusion in the Scotland squad. They respect the talent but also the graft, underlined by countless hours of additional work during off days at Cobham and studying videos of Cesc Fabregas at his best.
Gilmour’s display at Wembley should at least lay to rest for good the question of whether he is ready to run Scotland’s midfield. “I don’t think there is any element of risk when you have a player of Billy Gilmour’s talent,” Clarke said after the match. “When you put him on the pitch you expect him to do what he did, which was to get a hold of the ball for us, make us play through the midfield. So I didn’t feel it was a risk.
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“The balance of the rest of the team has got to be right to support Billy and I think we got that right. You have to look at the team performance as well — a lot of players supported him getting through 75 minutes of his first start. It was nice for Billy to get that start, a big platform, a big stage, a big player. I have said for a long time that he will be part of the future of Scottish football. We try to manage him properly, keep a lid on things and performances like that will do him no harm whatsoever.”
A second Scotland start against Croatia on Tuesday would bring Gilmour face to face with another of his midfield idols, Croatia legend Luka Modric, with everything at stake for both teams. Such experiences can only further refine the abilities of a young man who turned 20 at the beginning of this European Championship, and even if his participation stretches no further than the group stage, one more assured display would only strengthen his case to show more of his calm quality next season, at Chelsea or elsewhere.
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(Photo: Shaun Botterill – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)