Youth Academy graduate Colby Donovan has certainly been putting himself on the map at the Celtic Park stadium in more recent seasons, and his progress under legendary manager Martin O’Neill following his own double return to Parkhead in the 2025/26 domestic Scottish Premiership campaign has not gone unnoticed by others in the wider world of football.
As we head towards the first international break of the new campaign, the 20 year old Glasgow born talent has now found himself in 39 year old Belgian manager Sebastien Pocognoli debut Scottish 28 man squad for the opening four Nations League games against Slovenia, Switzerland, North Macedonia and Slovenia once again. The young right back is one of seven debutants in the group.
The young Celtic talent has already represented Scotland at both Under 19 and Under 21 levels previously, but this will be a great step up for him, a good experience, and something that Celtic themselves should benefit from further down the line – especially if he impresses well enough to make himself part of the squad moving forward through other international windows. Just like fans look for the best casino games to play, they will also be looking for the best potential Scottish stars of the future, and Donovan is sticking those boxes right now.
His breakthrough came towards the end of August during the last 2025/26 campaign where he made his professional debut from the substitutes bench in the clash with Livingston, and he went on to feature 13 more time in the league campaign, as well as making his debuts in the Scottish Cup, Scottish League Cup, Champions League and latterly got good game time in the Europa League – 27 appearances in total. He has started this season in the same vein, featuring in all ten matches so far and again showing he is not afraid to get stuck in, with more yellow cards following.
Having more than proven to O’Neill that he is capable of providing real competition to fellow Scottish international Anthony Ralston in the right back berth, and showing he can take the position from him given the enforced injury absence of Alistair Johnson, former professional left back Pocognoli is now clearly dabbling with whether or not he feels that he can also do it on the next big stage up.
Donovan’s star is definitely on the rise here and he is getting both the plaudits and the recognition, but in many ways, the really hard work begins now as both positions are presumably now his to lose should the youngster fail to show consistency in his current form levels, Naturally, at some point that will happen and it should be expected of a 20 year old still learning the ropes, but the next task at hand will be in showing he can deal with that, double down in training, and then come back stronger.
If he does that, both Scotland and Celtic will have a very valid talent on their hands for the very long term future, and given we are in the middle of an effective first team rebuild, he could make himself a very important and key member of that group moving forward for at least the next decade if the stars truly align.
Given so many new uncapped players in the Scotland group, his experiences over the last two seasons will have done him no harm at all about being more quickly thrown in if he impresses during training once again.
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