page_title: Scott Brown (footballer, born June 1985)
section_title: Style of play
hierarchical_section_title: Scott Brown (footballer, born June 1985) / Style of play
caption_attribution_description: English: Scott Brown
context_page_description: Scott Brown is a Scottish professional footballer who plays as a central midfielder for Scottish Premiership club Celtic.
  Brown started his career with Hibernian, breaking into their first team in 2002. His only trophy with Hibs was the 2006–07 Scottish League Cup; in that season he also won the SFWA Young Player of the Year award. In May 2007 he was transferred to Celtic for a fee of £4.4 million, the highest transfer fee paid between two Scottish clubs.
  During Brown's time at Celtic, the club has won ten Scottish championships, five Scottish Cups, and six Scottish League Cups. He has captained the club to 9 consecutive championships since 2011–12, and successive trebles in 2016–17, 2017–18 and 2018–19. He has been Celtic's captain since February 2010, and has made more European appearances for Celtic than any other player. He has won the PFA Scotland Players' Player of the Year award twice, in 2008–09 and 2017–18, and the Scottish Footballer of the Year award in 2017–18.
  Brown played for Scotland at under-19 and under-21 levels before making his full international debut in November 2005, aged 20.
context_section_description: In their 2009 "ones to watch" segment FIFA.com described Brown as being a "dynamic box-to-box midfielder", who is "direct, athletic and combative", they also pointed out that he has a "reckless streak". When analysing the 2007 SPFA team of the year, BBC Sport described Brown's "skilful, energetic running" as being integral to Hibs' "fluent" style of play. Scotland Under-21 coach Rainer Bonhof said in 2007 that Brown was a modern midfield player, but he needed to be calmed to avoid disciplinary problems. Early in his career, Brown admitted that he had to avoid sugary products, such as chocolate or fizzy drinks, because they would make him hyperactive.
  When previewing the 2011 Scottish League Cup Final, Hearts manager Jim Jefferies described Brown as follows:
  [He] has a great heart for the game. His iron will and commitment means he'll go at you all day long, even if he has to curb his tendency to be over aggressive at times.
  He has, at times, been criticised for his passing ability. As well as not being able to channel his aggression into a more productive manner, he has also been criticised for his disciplinary record due to his tough tackling style and his lack of goalscoring since joining Celtic. The Daily Telegraph noted in the lead-up to the 2011 Scottish Cup Final that Brown had only scored six goals in the previous two seasons, but had received eighteen yellow cards and two red cards. After captaining Scotland to an away win over Poland in March 2014, the Scotland national manager described Brown as "fantastic", adding "He's ungainly in a way but he does what all good midfielders do: pass the ball, keep it, move it on. But then he has got the power to win the ball back."
  Brown frequently finds himself in confrontations with opponents, often mocking them. Most memorable was during a Scottish Cup tie against Rangers at Ibrox in 2011 when he clashed several times with El-Hadji Diouf. Matters came to a head when Brown scored Celtic's equaliser, then turned round in front of Diouf with his arms outstretched and stared directly at the Rangers player. Brown was yellow carded by the referee, but afterwards said "It was the best booking I've had in my life." In a physical encounter against Ross County in 2013, he was booked for goading and laughing at Mihael Kovačević after the Ross County defender rushed up to him and shouted in his face. In August 2015, The Daily Record reported complaints from Qarabağ's Gara Garayev that several Celtic players mocked them during a Champions League qualifying, with Brown described as being "the worst".
  After a game against Celtic in January 2018, Hearts manager Craig Levein criticised Brown for a challenge that injured Hearts player Harry Cochrane. Levein claimed that opponents, particularly younger players like Cochrane, needed greater protection from referees when facing Brown. Levein, who coached Brown when he was Scotland manager, said that Brown was "aggressive" and was responding to a recent fixture where Hearts had beaten Celtic. However, Hearts' captain Don Cowie stated that Brown was not to blame for Cochrane's injury.
  The following month, Aberdeen's Sam Cosgrove was sent off for a reckless tackle on Brown, to which he reacted by jumping to his feet and 'strutting' towards the crowd while laughing to demonstrate his toughness. Before the end of the campaign, Brown received two foul challenges in which the perpetrator appeared to deliberately stamp on his groin area: Andrew Davies of Ross County was ordered off at the time, with Brown stating "I didn't want more kids anyway" but later adding that "Stamping on opponents when the ball is nowhere near you is definitely not being a hard man or going into a hard tackle"; the referee took no action against Steven Naismith of Hearts at the time, but the Scotland forward was later banned by the SFA. On the latter incident, Brown commented "I think they try to wind me up and get me sent off but let's be honest, I am past that stage and have matured eventually. So it is not going to work."
  Brown's habit of antagonising opponents was a promi
caption: Brown has been criticised for receiving too many yellow cards
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS-1D Mark II", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2009:09:26 16:58:02", "Image WhitePoint": "[313/1000, 329/1000]", "Image PrimaryChromaticities": "[16/25, 33/100, 21/100, 71/100, 3/20, 3/50]", "Image YCbCrCoefficients": "[299/1000, 587/1000, 57/500]", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "352", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1198", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7817", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:09:26 13:40:19", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:09:26 13:40:19", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "69/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "300", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "944", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1284", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R03", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1072", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "220000/71", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "585500/189", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Gamma": "11/5"}