Why Celtic won't 'bunker down' as Ange Postecoglou seeks to avoid coming 'unstuck' against Rangers

Any cup final plants itself in Scottish football history as dozens of common-or-garden domestic encounters do not.

Celtic's Ange Postecoglou believes his team will be best served by being made fully aware of what is at stake at Hampden on Sunday. The promoting Viaplay’s exclusively live coverage of the Viaplay Cup final against Rangers, coverage starting at 2pm on Sunday. Viaplay is available to stream from viaplay.com or via your TV provider on Sky, Virgin TV and Amazon Prime as an add-on subscription. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

That seems to be a seed firmly planted in the mind of Ange Postecoglou as he readies his Celtic side for their bid to dig out victory from the Viaplay Cup decider against greatest rivals Rangers at Hampden on Sunday. These heavyweights slugging it out for silverware doesn’t happen all that often, for all their traditional monopoly of honours. This will be only the fifth time in two decades – all of these taking the form of League Cup finals. The Australian’s belief is it would be foolhardy, and futile, to attempt to miniaturise the magnitude of the occasion, wherein his club will be defending the trophy.

“It’s not a normal week. As much as you want to say ‘just keep it as a normal week’, it’s not. I’m at Hampden, so it’s not a normal week,” said the Celtic manager at the managers’ pre-final media event. “You can get narky about it or complain about it. Or you can just embrace it as the fact it’s a big game this week, with a big prize at the end of it, and just roll with it.

“I’ve found over the course of time [over three decades as a coach] that big games are big games. There’s no point trying to shy away from that or trying to treat it like every other game because you know they’re not. The players are human beings and they understand what’s at stake at the weekend and the possibility of winning a trophy. You want them excited about that stuff, you want them understanding the consequences of those games. If you embrace that then there is nothing that is going to come along which should switch away your focus.

“If you try to bunker down and try to treat it like any other week you are going to get unstuck. There is so much attention on everything we do over the next few days. The players get asked for cup final tickets, or people around them get excited, as long as the players embrace that and don’t let it affect their preparation then that’s fine. I have found that is the best way to handle these games.”