Hands up who could pick Scott McDonald out of a line-up. Or tell us what number he wears on his shirt. How about how many goals he’s scored this season?

We’re willing to guess unless you’re a hardcore Celtic fan or one of the McDonald clan in Melbourne, you’d struggle to get three out of three.

The strange situation for Celtic striker Scott McDonald is you have one of the most lethal goalscorers in Europe – on league form anyway – who’s more recognised on the streets of Glasgow than in his hometown of Melbourne.

With Aussie fans only able to see him play if they have pay TV or if they watch a Celtic Champions league match on SBS, McDonald arguably has more fans in his adopted country than in Australia.

“It’s not that strange a situation because I spent a lot of my teenage years playing abroad,” says the 24-year-old when asked about his relative anonymity.

“I’ve not really been familiar to the Australian public since probably 1999 when I played for the U17 team that made the final of the Youth World Championships in New Zealand. After that I went straight overseas and got a contract with Southampton, so since I was 16 I haven’t lived or played in Australia regularly.”

Snapped up this off-season by boss Gordon Strachan – who had previously released McDonald when they were both at Southampton – he has been in phenomenal form for the Scottish champions, scoring 14 goals in 18 starts as well as snatching the winner in the Champions League against AC Milan in October.

It’s just a shame us Aussies don’t get to see him a bit more. Until now, that is. We caught up with the man they call “Skippy” but we prefer to simply call “McSocceroo”.

You grew up in Melbourne with your Scottish parents. Was it a football friendly household?
I remember that the first present I was ever bought was a football – one of those stuffed ones – by my dad. Eventually my mum had to hide it from me and my brothers because we kept kicking it and breaking things around the house. So football was with me from an early age.

The first team I ever played for was called Doveton Soccer Club which is pretty close to my family, as it’s where my parents got married and my dad also played for them.

I remember I was about five years old and my parents had bought me some football shorts to wear and they absolutely swamped me. These things were basically down to my ankles and people were laughing at me and making jokes. That’s my first football memory.

I always played in an older age group and I ended up playing first team football at the age of 15 at Cranbourne in division one in the Melbourne leagues before moving to the Victorian Institute of Sport.

Who were your early influences?
I would have to say my family and my dad especially. He was the coach of the teams I played for up until I was about 12 and at that point he felt it was time to let go of me and let me find my own path.

As a parent I don’t think he wanted to be seen as biased towards me and I was doing well at the time so he let me go off and let someone else coach me. Stan Webster was my coach after that for quite a lot of years and he was quite successful with a lot of clubs in Melbourne.

You came to the attention of most Aussie football fans at the 1999 Youth World Championships. That must have been a great experience?
Yeah, other than being really disappointed about losing the final on penalties and being so close to winning it, it was great to be in such a big tournament. We must have spent three months together leading up to it and we really built a strong team spirit.

We were away in South America, Bahrain, Qatar playing football and I was just a young boy. We had a really tight knit group there that helped us be successful.

My biggest memory was playing in the final in Auckland in a full stadium with the likes of Beckenbauer, Blatter and Pelé in the crowd. And we were playing against Brazil and the likes of Adriano at the time. It was amazing.You moved to Southampton pretty soon after that. How did that come about?
I was playing for the Gippsland Falcons and the VIS at the time, but I was noticed by one of the many scouts who were at the World Youth Championships. A few teams were interested but Southampton were the only team that put in a concrete offer.

One of the other teams looking at me was Celtic and it’s funny to think how things might have turned out if I had gone there then. It might not have worked out. Myself and my father went over after the tournament in early December to train for a couple of days and they had a really impressive set-up.

It’s a big decision about where to go. You’re 16 years old, you’re leaving all your friends and family and uprooting your life. Even something like the schooling is different. All these things are big parts of moving overseas but even to this day I feel like I made the right decision and went to the right club.

I really enjoyed every single minute of it. They had the academy where all the boys lived together, there was a nice couple who looked after all of us, we had chefs who would cook for us. We didn’t need to lift a finger, we just had to play football. We were treated very well. There were two or three Australians at the club and that made it easier for me to settle in.

Your current boss Gordon Strachan let you go at Southampton, didn’t he?
I spent three or four years at Southampton under three different managers. I’d just got my Premier League debut under Stuart Gray who was in charge before Gordon and everything was looking on the up.

I got some good reviews in the local press as well so it was promising. So it was hard for me when Stuart left, I felt a huge disappointment. It was as if all that hard work had gone to waste and I would have to start from square one. It was difficult at that age to stamp your authority in the team and I wasn’t able to do that when Gordon was in charge.

The team wasn’t doing so well and he bought in a lot of experience to steady the team. And he was successful at Southampton.

To this day I don’t regret anything that happened and in a sense Gordon was right as it helped me grow up a lot more and it made me a stronger person. It gave me a better attitude too.

Did Gordon say anything about the fact he’d let you go when you signed for Celtic?
Not really. There were no hard feelings between us and I always made an effort to say hello to him when our teams were playing against each other in Scotland. I’d always say hello and it showed that I wasn’t holding any grudges.

It was disappointing at the time but there were no hard feelings. It’s part of football. The only difficult part for me was trying to find another club that would give you the chance to play and establish yourself.

Thankfully after a couple of stop-starts with Bournemouth and Wimbledon, I found that with Motherwell under Terry Butcher.

There were stories that you didn’t hit it off right away with Terry – you got a couple of hairdryer treatments. But he was the boss who really gave you your break, wasn’t he?
Yeah, I first met Terry after the U20 tournament when I went to trial with Motherwell. Of course I remember him with the bloody head band as an England legend but the man himself is so down to earth. It’s strange because you saw this guy who was a bit of a legend but he was just so level-headed and honest.

You kind of expect a trial to go for maybe two weeks before a decision is made, but after two days of training Terry turned around and said we want to sign you until the end of the season. And that just gave me the confidence that I needed at the time and from then on in I went from strength to strength.

I owe a lot to Terry Butcher for saving my career and seeing something in me as a player. That’s all I needed – just to get first team football on a regular basis and show people what I could do. I always believed that I was good enough but it was just getting that bit of luck.

As for the hairdryer treatment, I got a couple, but to be fair Terry was always fantastic with me. If he thought you weren’t working hard he would certainly let you know in no uncertain terms.

At Motherwell you scored a couple of goals that you will always be remembered for – two that beat Celtic on the last day of the season to hand the title to rival Rangers. That must have been awkward considering you’re a Celtic fan and you now play for them…
Thankfully, now that I play for Celtic that seems to have gone away. I think that everyone is just trying to forget about it and put it in the past, especially Celtic supporters.

I think you could say that I’ve had to win a few over after that and thankfully I’ve had a good start with the club that’s helped that situation. At the time I was gutted as I’m a Celtic fan.

It was a strange feeling because the first goal I’d scored was such a great goal. But I turned around and thought “Oh my God, what have I done here. Why am I celebrating? Everyone is going to kill me.”

But before I had time to think about it, I gone up their end and scored again. And then I thought, “Oh God, I’m not even going to get out of this stadium alive.” Everyone was in such shock at the end of the game about what had happened.

But despite my Dad being a Celtic fan my family were very proud of me because it was such a big occasion for me to turn it on. It was probably the start of bigger and better things for me and bought me to people’s attention a bit more. After that there was an eye on me a bit more.

When it was clear you were going to leave Motherwell, Rangers made bid for you which fell through. You said at the time that you were going to find it hard to “get over” it – did that cause any trouble for you after you then went to Celtic?
I’ve always been honest in what I say and maybe sometimes too much. I stated that I wanted to leave Motherwell and upset a lot of people at that time but I thought it was time for me to move on and take the next step in my career.

I didn’t expect that to be either Celtic or Rangers but when one or the other comes calling, you don’t want to turn it down. And at the time, Celtic weren’t interested – or at least I wasn’t aware they were – and I was thinking about winning trophies, playing in Europe and turning out for a club that has 40-50,000 fans at their games every match. When you put it in those terms there’s not much of a decision to be made.

But if you put the two in front of me I would always pick Celtic because that’s the team I support. But I always said that whoever I play for I will give 100 percent, and after Motherwell knocked back Rangers bid I was disappointed but I went out that Saturday and scored the winner for my team.

Even among Celtic fans, there were a lot of people who didn’t want the club to sign you. That’s got to be hard going to a new club knowing that?
I’m quite a confident young person and stuff like that I put on the back burner and don’t listen to. I didn’t need to read any forums to know that was going to be the attitude of some people.

Understandably they love their club and they can say what they want and hate me as much as they want to but I was paid by Motherwell to do a job and I didn’t owe anyone else anything when I played for them. I was only trying to make a name for myself and unfortunately for Celtic they got the brunt of that.

Obviously I knew that from day one at the club I had to do a little bit more to prove myself than other new signings might have to. But that spurs you on to work even harder and I think that happened.

I’ve had people question whether I’m a Celtic fan and saying that I’ve just said that because I’ve signed for them. But I know and my family know that I’m a fan and growing up a Celtic supporter has made me appreciate playing for the club a lot more.

I hope the fans now can see that I always give 100 percent and I always play for the jersey. People have asked me what’s my next step and would I want to play in the Premier League but at the moment, if I could stay here for the rest of my career and be successful then I’d be happy to do that.

What’s it like coming from Motherwell to a big club like Celtic?
I think I’ve adapted to the game here pretty well. But playing for Celtic is completely different to playing for Motherwell, no disrespect to my old team.

There’s a lot more pressure to perform and they pay a lot more money for players. And week-in, week-out you’re playing against teams that want to play well and beat you. If you play for the either of the Old Firm teams, it’s the one that other teams highlight as the one they want to do well in.

I’d been warned that as a Celtic player people were going to be playing hard and in your face not wanting to give you an inch. And that’s been true.

But I’ve found since first playing in Scotland that the quality has improved substantially and you can see that in the way that Scotland as a national team are performing now. There are some exceptional young players coming through and that’s thanks to the strength of the SPL and the buying power of some of the clubs as the game gets bigger.Give us some idea about the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers. It’s one of the most bitter and intense in world football, isn’t it?
As someone from Melbourne, I’d say it was like Carlton vs Collingwood 100 times over, no, a thousand times over. That’s the nearest I can think of in comparison to anything Australian.

It’s such a big city Glasgow but it’s either blue or green and white, it’s as simple as that. The city is divided along those lines. But since I’ve been living here and playing for Celtic, I’ve bumped into some Rangers fans and there’s always a bit of banter but it’s friendly.

Scottish people are known for being a friendly bunch and I’ve never really had too much of a problem. In the end, in a city the size of Glasgow you’re going to have mates that support the other team and it’s more about getting the bragging rights after the game.

And being a fan of the team you’re playing for. You must be really pinching yourself?
It’s something I never thought would happen in a million for so many reasons. Obviously what I did against Celtic and them having a manager in charge who had released me from another club, I didn’t think it could happen.

For Gordon to do that – I’m not sure how many managers have done that in the past, go back and sign someone they’d previously not thought up to it. But that just shows the type of man Gordon is and if you see the player, you see the player. It doesn’t matter what has happened in the past. And it spurs me on to get as many winners medals as possible and play in as many European games as I can.

And it says a lot about you as a person that you weren’t going to let those issues stand in the way of you joining the club.
As soon as Celtic said they were interested in me that was it. We didn’t even need to talk about personal terms at that time. I knew they were going to be fine and I just wanted to go ahead and say yes and get the deal done. In the end the deal was done in 24 hours – that’s how keen I was.

Even my advisors were asking at the time if I was 100 percent sure about the move because there was going to be a lot of people unhappy about me joining and I turned around and said if the manager’s happy and the players are happy, then I’m happy. I’ll win the fans over in the end and that’s been the case.

Did you ever dream that the start to your Celtic career would be so good?
No, not at all. I’m probably still pinching myself now about it. But I think that’s all down to me enjoying it more than anything. That’s why I think I’ve had the success.

The management, the coaches, the players have all made me feel so at home and I appreciate being there, walking into the club with a smile on my face each morning. I’m enjoying every minute of it and I think that’s going to be the case for as long as I’m here.

Tell us a little bit about your style of play. Who do you most play like?
It’s a hard one to say because I don’t like to really compare myself to other players but if there was one player I’m similar to it’s probably Wayne Rooney. I’m quite a small stocky kind of lad and like to put myself about and score goals.

But also with something else to my game as well, create goals and come short and get involved in the game as well as go long over the defences. If you had to put me in a category I think it would be in that sort of role.

How do you handle the pressure of playing for a side like Celtic? It can be the breaking of some players coming to big clubs, can’t it?
I actually think the pressure brings out the best in me. It certainly makes me work harder. I enjoy it.

Most of the games, especially the European games, have been such a joy to play in this year, especially when you play at home in front of 50-odd thousand fans. They really are the twelfth man at home and they’re a big reason why we’ve been successful in the Champions League.

Our away form hasn’t been so good but our home form has been second to none. And it’s great to be playing against the best players in the world and showing that you’re a match for them. It’s been a pleasure
to play in.

This season the last minute goal against AC Milan at home has got to
be a highlight?
Yeah, it was fantastic. You work hard during the whole game and I got my reward when one fell very nicely for me right at the end. You couldn’t dream for an easier finish than that in a game.

And there’s more to my game than just hanging around and banging them in from five yards but when those chances come up you have to be in position to take them. It was a huge highlight especially coming off scoring my first senior hat-trick for Celtic the weekend before.

From that point forward it’s been a flying six months. But obviously to get that winning goal is something that I will remember for the rest of my life. And I was lucky enough to get Kaka’s shirt at the end of the game and that’s proudly up on my wall, especially after he was made World Player of the Year!

And now it’s on to Barcelona for the knock-out stages. How did you initially feel when you found out you’d drawn the Spanish giants?
I was excited but no matter who we’d got it was going to be a massive game. I wanted an all-British affair because I just think the atmosphere and the rivalry between England and Scotland would just make it a massive event but you can’t really complain by getting Barcelona, can you?

The likes of Ronaldinho, Messi, Henry, Eto’o, you can go on and on. And to get to play in another iconic stadium like the Nou Camp after playing in the San Siro and the Stadium of Light against Benfica, it’s fantastic.

For us it’s great that we have Barcelona at home first – hopefully we can go out there and get a result and then it gives us something to go out and die for when we play the second leg.

Going on to the Socceroos, you’ve always stated that you were Australia through and through, even when Scotland were sniffing around. Good to see you’re committed to the Socceroos.
Of course. I didn’t play in the Asian Cup and I’m grateful to the FFA and Graham Arnold for understanding my situation and letting me go back to Celtic to get a full pre-season under my belt.

I’m sure that’s one of the reasons I’m doing well now – that I was given the chance to get a foot in the door and train with the team from the start. If I had gone to the Asian Cup, then who knows what kind of season it might have been for me?

I spoke to Graham Arnold personally and explained my situation and he said we think it would be best if you miss this because there’s not a guarantee of you getting a game anyway with the likes of Mark and others ahead of you. Of course if there was an injury I would be back straight away but his decision was that I was going to stay with Celtic.

In the end if Australia had called me up, I would’ve gone. It’s as simple as that. I really wanted to go because it was a great opportunity to get a taste of Asian football.

But at the same time your career is your career and I don’t think it would’ve been a good start for me to turn up with just a couple of days to go before the start of the season with Celtic and expect to start in matches. At that point I wasn’t established and I was coming from a smaller club and I had to prove myself.

You got a game for the Socceroos against Nigeria in London. Are you looking forward to being part of the team for World Cup qualifiers?
I thoroughly enjoyed the Nigeria game and getting the opportunity to play up front with Harry Kewell was fantastic. He’s a guy that I have always looked up to.

I remember when I was a young kid I was a ballboy at the Iran qualifier in Melbourne and Harry was playing. I always remember him telling the ballboys to slow it down and to stop throwing the balls in so fast. It’s a special memory.

The other thing from the Nigeria game was that it was great to play two up front – Australia haven’t done that too much in the past and I certainly prefer to play with a partner.