A Scotland player? Really?

Nacho Novo who was a regular starter when Walter Smith returned to Ibrox as manager, averaging a goal every 626.5 minutes in the first five months of Smith's reign.

Nacho Novo who has been used sparingly ever since, 33 times as a sub, 23 times as a starter.

Nacho Novo who has been shunted ever further down the pecking order by a succession of Smith signings; Daniel Cousin (now Hull), Jean-Claude Darcheville, Kyle Lafferty, Kenny Miller, Andrius Velicka.

Nacho Novo the sixth-choice striker at Ibrox when everyone's fit.

Nacho Novo the utility wide man when there's a bit of an injury crisis.

Nacho Novo who'll be 30 years old by the time Scotland play their next competitive match.

Nacho Novo who is honest and hard-working and patient and incredibly passionate about what he does but whose international football prospects in this country are held back by two not insignificant things. 1. He's not eligible. 2. He's not good enough.

Nacho must know all this. To be fair to him, none of this McNovo stuff was his idea. It was dreamed up in a newspaper office on a quiet day when the clock was ticking and the terrorising vista of a blank back page stared people in the face and was then given some kind of credence by the SFA who were too diplomatic by far to say what they really wanted to say, namely, "back away from the gin, boys, it's not a runner". They finally did that on Friday, after a fashion. The residency rule is not something they are exploiting right now, they said. It's a gentleman's agreement with the other home unions. Bloodline qualifications only. "Now at some stage in the future one or more of us (the home unions] may change our opinion and go for the full FIFA regulation – but at the moment, we're all sticking to our agreement."

In other words, if anybody half-decent comes along that can be hoiked into the national team on the residency rule then the agreement will be dumped in a heartbeat. That's not you, Nacho. Sorry.

Poor Nacho. He went along with things with a slightly bemused air but he found himself in a surreal spot, slap in the middle of warring tabloids. He was Nacho the cause célèbre to one side and Nacho the great opportunist to the other. In fact, he was neither. I suspect that Novo's true ambitions don't stretch beyond the walls of Ibrox despite his claim that it would have been an honour to represent Scotland. What else was he supposed to say? A guy asks him a question: "Hey, Nacho. What if the SFA rang you up, told you that you are their one true salvation, begged you to turn your back on your imminent prospects of usurping Fernando Torres or David Villa from the Spanish attack and declare your allegiance to Scotland. Would you be honoured?" Of course he would. But I suspect that in these downcast times, when a bit of proper game-time for Rangers is all he craves, international football is the furthest thing from his mind. I suspect that Novo has been reading all this stuff about him and his dream of playing in front of the Tartan Army and has been thinking that some Scottish newspapers really lost the plot this time.

The campaign rolled on, though. You'd have thought that those shoving the dead weight of this bandwagon would have collapsed through sheer exhaustion, but no. They were a resilient lot, heaving this old monstrosity every day, giving us updates like any of us ever believed there was any possibility of dear Nacho getting a cap. Story went that Novo would have loved to play for Scotland but he never found the time to apply for a passport. Not exactly sending out a "come and get me" message now, was he? But, hey, his girlfriend was teaching him the words of Flower of Scotland. Having lived in this country since the summer of 2001, he has mastered the first verse. What can you say? Olé!

The only reason that the SFA didn't immediately dynamite the idea of McNovo into kingdom come was not because they saw the Spaniard as a realistic prospect but because they wanted to diffuse the Novo story while at the same time keeping their options open in the future on the residency rule. This, of course, made George Burley look ambiguous on the Novo subject. Made him look like he was giving it weight. He was not.

Only in Scotland could such a long-running fuss be made about such a moderate player. No offence to the tenacious little guy but you'd want to have a dramatically low opinion of the Scottish national team to think that somebody like Novo would improve things.

A question for the denizens of Ibrox at this point, a question to those who thought that Novo would have been a good addition to Burley's set-up. Why would it have been acceptable for Novo to represent a country he was not born in but it's not acceptable for Aiden McGeady and James McCarthy to do the same? Rangers fans are deeply cynical and thunderously abusive of McGeady and McCarthy because the players have said they feel more Irish than Scottish. In Rangers' eyes, McGeady, in particular, only declared for the Republic for his own selfish reasons. Yet if Novo said he suddenly felt more Scottish than Spanish then the Ibrox faithful were seemingly prepared to accept it. In their view, Novo wouldn't have been guilty of the same opportunism they condemn McGeady for. How does that work?

Somebody is going to have to explain it to me. Better still, don't bother. The thing is over and done with now. Let it lie.