International breaks should be a chance for club managers to switch off for a few days and take a step back from the twice weekly dugout tension.
Should, being the word. In reality, these fortnights are a nightmare for gaffers. It’s like sending the toddler into the soft play on their own for the first time. You want them to have fun – but not to come back with a broken leg or suffering a meltdown after falling out with the other kids.
Like the weans, sometimes they can come back with a smile and the kid of mood they can take back to nursery. Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers might need to dish out hugs to the likes of Liam Scales and Arne Engels after some sore ones for Ireland and Belgium. But there could be a high five in store for others – like Luis Palma. The Honduran has become a bit of a forgotten man at Parkhead. He’s barely managed three hours of football all season and has slipped to unused sub status more often than not. It’s getting difficult to see a long term future for the winger at the club.
Yet perhaps his latest trip home could give him the boost required for another crack at Celtic. You’d need to have a heart of stone not to want to see the kid managed to turn it around, given the attitude he’s shown. Usually when players who are struggling with their clubs head off around the globe on international duty, their local media are keen to get into the nitty gritty over the why they are not getting game time.
These guys have the entire planet in their pocket with smart phones these days yet can still be surprised when their words get back to the nations of their employers. That’s when the old ‘lost in translation’ excuse comes out. We heard it last week with Kenneth Vargas, with the Hearts man doing the text book social media backtrack, suggesting his quotes talking about leaving Tynecastle were taken out of context, blah, blah, blah.
Aye right wee man. We’ve all got Google Translate. It’s funny how Palma’s never misquoted. It’s not like there’s not been plenty of opportunity for for to get the wrong end of the stick with the wide man, as he’s constantly in front of Honduran hacks. That’s because he’s a David Beckham type figure over there. You could see it on the summer tour of American, where he was followed by a band of reporters from Honduras who hung on his every word.
And that’s the point with Palma. He’s not said a single bad word about Celtic, about his manager, or about Scottish football. Not a peep. Instead he’s constantly spoken about working harder to make his way at Parkhead. And he also revealed his life off the pitch hasn’t been exactly easy either. Palma notched a superb double in the 2-0 Concacaf Nations League win against Mexico the other day and dedicated his goals to his late gran, who passed away recently.
By all accounts she was a huge part of his life and he was understandably hurting. Fans often forget that players are actually human beings. They might get paid a decent wedge but they still have the same troubles as the rest of us. Money might buy you happiness but you can’t spend your way out of grief.
The past few months of personal stuff might explain why he’s gone off the boil a tad, but he’s never used it as an excuse. And even though he might be just 24-years-old, he does seem to have a good head on his shoulders. The other day he said: “Personally, these have not been months as I would have liked. But the storm will pass, and calm always comes.”
Fair play to him. Being a good lad doesn’t guarantee you a game though. And it does look difficult to plot a path for him at Parkhead. There is a player there, no doubt. Palma might only use his left foot for standing on, but the right one is pretty tasty. The problem he’s got is he’s not really a Brendan Rodgers kind of player. The same fate fell on Kris Commons – a similar type to Palma – in the manager’s first spell in charge.
It probably doesn’t help when it’s Daizen Maeda in his position. The Japanese dynamo puts in such a shift he makes Paula Radcliffe look like a couch potato. That’s not Palma’s game. Rodgers wants relentless pressing from his wide men and it’s something Nicolas Kuhn is still getting used to on the other side.
But it’s not really what the Honduran is about. He’s more a man for taking the ball in to feet, shuffling inside and then whipping over a cross or getting away a shot. When it works it’s a pretty decent weapon too. It’s just tough to deploy in Scotland when turning inside is like running into the Kingston Bridge at rush hour.
That’s why you can see Palma being a superstar in the MLS at some point, where the pace is not quite as frantic and the defences not so congested. In the meantime he will get chances in the next few hectic weeks – and it’ll either give his Celtic career a second wind or it’ll edge him closer to his next challenge. Punters shouldn’t get on his back because – unlike some of those kids at the soft play – Palma won’t thrown his toys out.