As reported by BBC Scotland, Rangers striker Alfredo Morelos faces a 5,200-mile trip back to Scotland just days before a mammoth match away to Neil Lennon’s Celtic.
The forward has been included in Carlos Queiroz’s squad for upcoming Colombia friendlies against Japan and South Korea, with the South Americans making the trip to Asia.
They are first due to play Japan on 22nd March in the Kirin Cup before facing South Korea on 26th March.
The latter match is just five days before our trip to Celtic Park in the Scottish Premiership at 12:00 on the following Sunday, with the trip home likely to be time consuming and physically exhausting.
It’s not ideal preparation and while it’s nice for Morelos to receive national team recognition, surely it’s going to impact his performance levels for the derby?
That will worry supporters considering he is by far our most effective player and has scored an enormous 28 goals this season.
Jermain Defoe can finish when in the right positions but he has failed to gel properly with his teammates so far and Kyle Lafferty has offered little throughout the season.
The derby is massively important, with victory potentially bringing us back into a late title-race and defeat all but ruling us out.
Hopefully Rangers and Colombia can work together to minimise his playing time so that at the very least he is not physically drained before making the trip home.