Although he hasn’t played much for the Bhoys, there is no doubting the role Georgios Samaras played in Celtic winning the league following his loan move from Manchester City. During the run-in he scored the winning goals against Aberdeen and Motherwell to help Celtic to six crucial points, without which – Rangers would have won the league.

Although the striker’s future is rather uncertain, he can now look forward to representing Greece in the European Championships. The five goals he scored in the Scottish Premier League will stand him in good stead confidence wise for the tournament, that’s for sure. He was getting extremely frustrated at Man City and to end the season with a Championship winning medal is hopefully a sign of things to come for the former Heerenveen man.

It remains to be seen though, whether he will be a regular starter during Euro 2008. Throughout his short career he has been used to warming the bench and this may be the case again this summer. This is highlighted by the fact that during qualification for Euro 2008, he made three starts but came off the bench on five occasions. He can’t quite cement a first team place for club or country and this must be starting to get to him.

Samaras has scored three goals in 16 international appearances but after a successful qualifying campaign in which he netted five goals, Fanis Gekas may pip the Celtic man to a starting berth. Samara also faces competition from the lively Dimitris Salpingidis, the hard-working Giannis Amanatidis and the man who scored the winning goal in the Euro 2004 final – Angelos Charisteas. However, if Samaras can’t force his way into the starting line-up, he just needs to continue doing what he has done this season for Celtic – make an impact off the bench. Score a crucial goal in the group stages and he will be looked upon far more favourably in the Greece managers’ eyes.

In terms of his team’s chances in the tournament, few people would bet on Euro 2008 being as successful as four years ago when Greece emerged surprise winners of Euro 2004. They have a chance of progressing from the group stage, but it won’t be easy. They face Sweden, Russia and Spain in their Group D fixtures and a victory against the Swedes in the opening game could prove crucial. They will be outsiders to win the tournament, but that didn’t stop them in 2004, so maybe they will revel under the tag of underdogs once more.

Like I have said, we don’t know if Samaras will return to Celtic next season. If he does though, we hope that it comes on the back of plenty of goals for his country in Euro 2008. A confident Samaras could perform well in the SPL; I just hope we get the chance to see it.