The defender is in his golden years and will be the last to complain about the holiday craziness.
Leon Balogun is the last player you’ll hear complaining about a hectic holiday football schedule and having to train on Christmas Day.
The Rangers defender has lived life on the other side of the tracks, thinking that a career that had taken him to the brink of the 2014 World Cup might come to an end when a club discharged him due to a major injury. So, playing a few games for a team with one title in the cabinet and three more on the way is unlikely to evoke a groan from the Nigeria international, who, at 35, is loving every minute of his second tenure at Ibrox.
Balogun has become new Gers boss Philippe Clement’s preferred choice at left centre back alongside Connor Goldson and will almost certainly feature when Ross County come calling tonight. The only way he’d miss out is if Clement wants him fresh for the Old Firm clash on Saturday but Balogun would play every minute of every match if asked and admits he takes the same attitude into every training session.
“I am 35, I have been trying to live like that for a few years now in order to add some years towards the end,” he said. “It is not working out so bad for me. We are very privileged as footballers to be doing what we are doing. There comes a lot of joy with it, a lot of nice things come with being a footballer.
“There’s a lot of sacrifice as well. But we have all the time in the world. You need to work on your craft all the time to be the best version that you can be.
“If you want to win trophies, if you want to play for the best teams in the world then you need to make sure you are constantly at it. I think that should be a given.
“I don’t know how much you know about me but, at one point in my career, I was 26, my career hadn’t really kicked off. I played in a team that just got relegated from the Bundesliga, Dusseldorf, I got my national team debut and broke my metatarsal three months before my contract expired.
“I came back in on crutches and was told that I was getting released. I was supposed to be in the World Cup squad in 2014 and missed out. I was about six months in unemployment status.
“When I found a team in the second league in Germany, we got promoted, and I have tried to look at my career like it can be over like this. That is also something I am trying to pass on. For me to be back at Rangers, which is a club that I love and learned to love during the first spell, it is a massive privilege every day.”
Which, he insists, makes playing games after a pleasure rather than a pain. “I think if you play for Rangers, in my case at least and that is probably the same for most of the boys who have been here for some time, you are used to it,” Balogun said.
“When I first came here they told me on average you play 55, 60 games. Wow! That is a big number. Especially coming from Germany when you have 17 games plus a few cup games and if you play for a team like I played then unfortunately it is only until the second round!
“It was very shocking but that is a different story! But you have to prepare for it. The manager, the whole staff like the sports science, the medical staff, everybody keeps us on our toes so that we get the treatment, we do the add-ons in terms of cryotherapy. You get groomed for it and you get prepared for it and you follow the flow.”
Leon Balogun and Lawrence Shankland in action
Talking of the boss, Balogun has been hugely impressed with the impact made by Clement in only two months. “I think he is very demanding in his ways and he is challenging us every day,” he assessed. “He has got very high demands.
“That is not to say he is some sort of dictator or anything, but he is very meticulous in the way he wants to work and he reminds us in every given moment that we need to keep these standards up constantly, whether that’s in training sessions, in the game at half-time.
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