GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — At age 42, veteran goalkeeper Craig Gordon is back in the Scotland squad picked Tuesday for two key 2026 World Cup qualifying games.
Gordon returned to the Scotland camp for home games against Greece and Belarus between Oct. 9-12 despite not playing a game this season for Hearts, the Scottish league leader.
One Scotland teammate, Bournemouth winger Ben Gannon Doak, was not born when Gordon made his national-team debut in May 2004.
Scotland has two home games in Glasgow after a promising start to a four-team qualifying group three weeks ago. Four points were earned without conceding a goal in away games against Denmark and Belarus.
Still, Gordon’s call-up reflects a wider concern for Scotland coach Steve Clarke, who selected three goalkeepers not currently playing regular games at their clubs.
Angus Gunn kept clean sheets in the first two qualifiers despite not playing this season for Nottingham Forest, and Liam Kelly is not first choice at Rangers.
“With the goalkeepers it’s probably still a bit of an issue,” Clarke acknowledged Tuesday. “I’ve spoken to the people I need to speak to about Craig, they’re telling me he’s fully fit.”
Scotland has not played at a World Cup since 1998 — when its goalkeeper was 39-year-old Jim Leighton — six years before Gordon played the first of his 81 games for the national team.
Gordon, the former Celtic and Sunderland goalie, already holds the record as Scotland’s oldest player. He was already 42 in March when he played in a Nations League game against Greece.
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FILE - Scotland's goalkeeper Craig Gordon waits during the UEFA Nations League soccer match between Scotland and Ukraine, at Hampden Park, in Glasgow, Scotland, Sept. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell, file)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An ailing astronaut returned to Earth with three others on Thursday, ending their space station mission more than a month early in NASA’s first medical evacuation.
SpaceX guided the capsule to a middle-of-the-night splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego, less than 11 hours after the astronauts exited the International Space Station.
“It’s so good to be home,” said NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, the capsule commander.
It was an unexpected finish to a mission that began in August and left the orbiting lab with only one American and two Russians on board. NASA and SpaceX said they would try to move up the launch of a fresh crew of four; liftoff is currently targeted for mid-February.
Cardman and NASA’s Mike Fincke were joined on the return by Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. Officials have refused to identify the astronaut who had the health problem or explain what happened, citing medical privacy.
While the astronaut was stable in orbit, NASA wanted them back on Earth as soon as possible to receive proper care and diagnostic testing. The entry and splashdown required no special changes or accommodations, officials said, and the recovery ship had its usual allotment of medical experts on board. It was not immediately known when the astronauts would fly from California to their home base in Houston. Platonov’s return to Moscow was also unclear.
NASA stressed repeatedly over the past week that this was not an emergency. The astronaut fell sick or was injured on Jan. 7, prompting NASA to call off the next day’s spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke, and ultimately resulting in the early return. It was the first time NASA cut short a spaceflight for medical reasons. The Russians had done so decades ago.
The space station has gotten by with three astronauts before, sometimes even with just two. NASA said it will be unable to perform a spacewalk, even for an emergency, until the arrival of the next crew, which has two Americans, one French and one Russian astronaut.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
This screengrab from video provided by NASA TV shows the SpaceX Dragon departing from the International Space Station shortly after undocking with four NASA Crew-11 members inside on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (NASA via AP)
This photo provided by NASA shows clockwise from bottom left are, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui gathering for a crew portrait wearing their Dragon pressure suits during a suit verification check inside the International Space Station’s Kibo laboratory module, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (NASA via AP)
This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows recovery vessels approaching the NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 capsule to evacuate one of the crew members after they re-entered the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)
This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows the NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 members re entering the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)
This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows the NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 members re entering the earth in a middle-of-the-night splashdown near San Diego, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (NASA via AP)
