Celtic ace reveals why Callum McGregor moment eased pain of 'longest season' as he sets out World Cup stall

Johnston, 27, missed the majority of the season for Celtic with a troublesome hamstring injury, but had a major impact on Martin O’Neill’s team when he returned for the final portion of the campaign to help them secure a fifth successive title win with a 3-1 win over Hearts on the final day of the campaign.

Set to start for the tournament co-hosts as they kick off their World Cup campaign against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Toronto on Friday (kick-off: 8pm UK time), he is hoping to build on his strong end-of-season form with Celtic to fuel Jesse Marsch’s squad at the tournament this summer.

“It wasn’t easy [being out],” reflected Johnston. “When I heard the final whistle and you see how much it means to not only the players, but the senior players that won a ton. When you look at James [Forrest], Cal [McGregor], but also the backroom staff. The kit men, and you see ‘wow, these guys each of them have won whatever I have multiplied by five in terms of trophies. The tears of joy, how much they’ve been through this entire year. I think that puts it all into perspective. I really didn’t play much football, but at the same time it felt like the longest year.

“Now I get to play at a World Cup in front of my home crowd, my family, my friends. It’s something you really can’t imagine. It’s not even in your wildest dreams growing up. I really can’t wait for it. It’s always such an amazing feeling when you get to go out and represent your country and sing your national anthem before the game. It’s so close now. I’ve just been busy this whole season focusing on getting back from my hamstring injury and focusing on Celtic that the World Cup has really snuck up on me.

“It’s understanding what their [Bosnia} wingers are all about. They’re about cutting inside, putting balls into the box. They’ve got Edin Džeko, who’s one of the players I watched growing up, and he’s still going at a really high level. They’ve got a lot of quality up there, they’re big, we understand that they want to play for a bit of chaos in the box and pick up second balls.

“We played against teams that are not dissimilar to that, and it’s about moving your feet, defending with 11, that you need your wingers to come back and do a job, you’re going to need your 10s, even your number nine potentially, to come back and help out, and that’s something that I think that we’ve again continued to chip away at. It’s not something that maybe comes naturally to us in terms of that mentality, but it’s something that we’re trying to continue to build on, and be really difficult to play against.”

Drawn in Group B of the tournament, Canada will also face Qatar and Switzerland in the group stage of the World Cup, and Johnston believes that the success of his national team will be built on their defensive structure. Losing just once in the last 12 months, the Canadian national team have recorded an impressive number of clean sheets in 10 of their last 16 games.

“Our model for this summer is that we want to be the hardest team in the world to play against,” said Johnston. “That’s something that’s actually very achievable for us, based on our athleticism and our mentality. Guys know where their spots are, and then it comes down to desire as well when we get into a situation.”

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