David Marshall hopes Scotland have fully fit squad when football finally resumes

David Marshall admits a fully fit Scotland squad may be the one small crumb of comfort to take from the coronavirus shutdown.Steve Clarkes team were due to kick off their Euro 2020 play-off bid against Israel on Thursday before the Covid-19 pandemic took hold of Europe.The game has now been shelved until at least June, but Scottish Football Association chief executive Ian Maxwell admits even those plans are unrealistic.The sooner you stay at home the sooner we can get back to the football.Please do the right thing. #StayHomeSaveLives pic.twitter.com/zjS1blMNdd Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) March 23, 2020Goalkeeper Marshall is well aware of how serious the current situation is as Scotland battles to get a grip on the killer disease.But turning his focus back to football, he says the lockdown may just allow his team-mates to regain full strength when the Israel clash does finally go ahead.Defenders John Souttar, Scott McKenna and Kieran Tierney have all been out of action in recent weeks while midfielder John McGinn has not played since December.Scotland number one Marshall told Radio Clyde: Its such a difficult situation. Its something that nobody could foresee.Its taken away everything from us but the reality is that the loss of life, particularly when you look at the figures in Italy and Spain, then its a shock to everyone. You have to take it as seriously as you can.Football is obviously a massive thing in this country and everyone is missing it so much.Weve had the big break since November so this Israel game has been in the back of our minds since then.We had a four or five-week lead in and were even getting sent some footage of Israel and other bits and pieces.It felt like we were getting close and the excitement was building.To have it taken away is disappointing.I know we had a few injuries. John McGinn was just coming back and so are a few other boys but hopefully by the time the game does take place everybody will be fit and well and it could maybe be a positive for us.Scotlands men have not featured in a major tournament since 1998 and the wait is set to go on after UEFA was forced to postpone this summers European Championship by 12 months.Scotland last featured at a summer tournament in 1998 (PA)Now Marshall hopes the delay does not scupper his hopes of featuring for his national team in a tournament which will see four games staged at Hampden.He said: I hope (I can still be involved next year), just as long as the gaffer is OK with that.I did think about that when it was announced the Euros was being postponed until next year.Obviously at a certain age you dont know where youre going to be in the next year or so.Weve got a pretty young squad so it probably affects me more than most. I just need to keep the club form going and hopefully I can stay in the team.(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){

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