Steven Fletcher (footballer) - International Career

International Career

Despite his English birthplace, Fletcher chose to represent Scotland, his mother's home country and where he had lived since his father's death. Fletcher was the top scorer in the Scotland under–19 team which reached the final of the 2006 European Championship, losing to Spain. Following the achievements of the under–19 side, Fletcher was named by The Scotsman newspaper as one of the "ten to watch" in Scottish sport during 2007. Fletcher made his debut for Scotland under–21s in the 2004–05 season.

Fletcher was named in the Scotland squad for the first time in March 2008, for a friendly match against Croatia. Fletcher started the game and provided the assist for Kenny Miller to score the equalising goal in a 1–1 draw. He was substituted at half-time due to injury. He was dropped back to the under–21 team in September 2008, but was immediately recalled to the full squad after scoring twice against Slovenia under–21s. Fletcher scored his first full international goal in a 2–1 win against Iceland on 1 April 2009.

After being left out of Euro 2012 qualification matches against Czech Republic and Spain, Fletcher publicly criticised head coach Craig Levein. Fletcher was then left out of the next Scotland squad, although Levein claimed that this was because Fletcher had not been playing regularly for his club side. When Levein attempted to select him for the squad in February 2011, Fletcher sent a text message stating that he did not want to join the squad. The dispute continued through the remainder of 2011, as Levein insisted that Fletcher would have to contact him first if he wanted to return to the squad. His club manager, Mick McCarthy, said in November 2011 that Fletcher wanted to play for Scotland and that the situation should be resolved.

Near the end of the 2011–12 season, Levein advised the Scottish media that he would not pick Fletcher again. Following Fletcher's £12 million move to Sunderland in August 2012, Levein re-iterated that Fletcher would not feature for Scotland again whilst he was manager. Levein also criticised the transfer fee paid by Sunderland as "quite obscene" and claimed that Fletcher had made no effort to rejoin the national squad. The dispute came into further focus after Fletcher performed well for Sunderland and Scotland only scored once in their first two 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification matches. Fletcher stated on his Twitter account that he would be willing to play for Scotland. His agent claimed that Fletcher had made an attempt to reconcile with Levein during in September 2011, but nobody had provided details of how they could meet.

On 2 October 2012, Fletcher was recalled to the Scotland squad for their World Cup qualifiers with Wales and Belgium.