Christie

Christie has just signed a new deal with Bournemouth and will remain at the club until 2029. He is, as they say, in a good place. Messi’s exploits at 38 – he will be 39 this month – offers Christie a world of encouragement that this World Cup doesn’t necessarily have to be his last.

In England, he sees players getting better with age, guys in their mid-30s who are still operating well at the top level. “Some are pushing for the high-30s and still churning out unbelievable performances week in, week out,” he said.

Head coach Clarke has spoken often about the dynamic of starters and finishers, the importance of having influential players coming off the bench late on. That was the scenario Christie found himself in against Haiti. Tense moments, those.

Would he rather be a starter or a finisher? “I honestly don’t mind,” he commented. “I’m not too sure, to be honest. The manager’s been very, very big on that, especially since we’ve come into the camp.

“He’s making everybody realise that every single person in our squad is going to be needed at some point, whether some boys play three, four, five minutes, some players might play every minute, but everybody’s got a massive part to play. Everybody’s taking that on and doing their bit so far.”

So to Boston for Morocco on Friday. One point and Scotland are more or less guaranteed a place in the knockouts. One stellar 90-minute performance, however challenging, and they’re history makers.

“It’s a dream come true to even play in a World Cup, but you have to quickly adjust your targets and adjust your mindset,” added Christie. “From being happy to be here you want to go and create more and keep pushing the bar. The manager has kept the foot to the floor.”

Having achieved one dream by making it to America, Christie is now pursuing another. Morocco await – the greatest test of his football life.

Former EastEnders star Ben Hardy is returning to screens in an Agatha Christie film that also includes a Game of Thrones actor

Former Peter Beale actor Ben Hardy is set to start filming an exciting new ‘whounnit’ based on real-life events.

The new film Eleven Missing Days will also star Vincent Cassel and Felicity Jones and tell the story of Agatha Christie’s real-life disappearance.

The novelist’s disappearance made national and international headlines during the 1920s, with famous names joining the search to find her, including leading politicians and fellow writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle, according to Deadline.

There has been a lot of speculation over what happened to the author, and now 100 years on, some details still remain a mystery.

The synopsis reads for the film: “In December 1926, at the height of her fame, Agatha Christie became front-page news when she vanished in bizarre circumstances from her home.

“In a case of life imitating art, this whodunnit explores the investigation behind her disappearance, strangely resembling an Agatha Christie novel itself, where everyone in her life became a suspect.”

A stellar cast joins Ben Hardy in the forthcoming movie, including Say Nothing star Ryan McParland, Game of Thrones’s Alfie Allen, The Brutalist’s Stacy Martin, Nicole Elizabeth Berger from He’s Watching You, and The Gorge actor Oliver Trevena.

Currently in pre-production, the picture is on course to shoot this summer in the UK.

Who did Ben Hardy play in EastEnders?

The 35-year-old found fame on the BBC soap in 2013 when he arrived in Walford as legendary character Peter Beale. He had taken over the role from Thomas Law, who had played the part between 2006 and 2010 before returning in 2023.

Ben’s version of Peter was most memorable for being caught up in the ‘Who Killed Lucy Beale?’ saga and for dating Lola Peace (Danielle Harold) before rekindling his romance with Lauren Branning (Jacqueline Jossa).

After finding out his own brother Bobby (Eliot Carrington) had killed Lucy, Peter struggled with life in Walford and moved to New Zealand to start a new life in 2015.

In an interview with The Independent, Ben said that he had “been battling it for a year, how to make things work” before ultimately deciding to leave the show.

“I have so much respect for everyone who works on that show, I felt myself getting lazy as an actor,” he explained. “I felt myself constantly going, ‘This scene doesn’t work’.”

Ben went on to say: “That laziness scared me. I said, ‘I have to get out of here’.”

He has since traded in his fruit-and-veg market stall for the bright lights of Hollywood and landed a role in the 2016 film X-Men: Apocalypse.

He also played Roger Taylor in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody and portrayed the role of Four in the Netflix movie ‘6 Underground’ alongside Ryan Reynolds.

Ben also played Frank McCulled in the film Pixie, Seb in The Voyeurs, Simon in The Girl Before, and Tre in Tagged.

Most recently, he starred as Oliver Jones in the Netflix movie Love at First Sight (2023) and the 2025 horror movie The Conjuring: Last Rites.

EastEnders airs Monday to Thursday on BBC One and iPlayer