Brendan Rodgers delivers Celtic v Bayern Champions League final quip as early table makes for good reading
What the Celtic manager said after victory over Slovan Bratislava
One of Brendan Rodgers' stated aims is to improve Celtic at the top level in Europe and starting with a 5-1 win over Slovan Bratislava was a positive sign that he might be successful in this aim.
The manager even felt moved to quip that if they stopped the competition now, Celtic would be playing Bayern Munich – 9-2 victors over Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday night – in the Champions League final.
As it stands, Celtic sit second behind the German giants in the new one-league format.
The revamp seems to be to the Scottish champions’ liking. Goals from Liam Scales, Kyogo Furuhashi, Arne Engels, Daizen Maeda and substitute Adam Idah handed Celtic a rousing victory and made it six wins on the trot since the start of the season.
Record signing Engels has made an immediate impression and set up Scales' headed opener after 17 minutes from a corner before scoring the third goal himself from the spot. Rodgers applauded the board for sanctioning signings such as Engels although seven of the side that started against Slovan Bratislava also started the first Champions League group match of last season against Feyenoord.
The only negative was conceding a goal from Kevin Wimmer on the hour mark – only the second goal Celtic have lost this season. Rodgers remarked that he sensed a special night soon after the team’s arrival at Parkhead.
“It was a great night for everyone,” he said. “I thought that you just sensed it before the game.
“The intensity right from the off was superb,” he added. “The players were absolutely sensational in the game. Just everything, mentality, hunger, greedy for more goals, greedy for the ball, everyone working right to the very end. And they could have had more than five. So it was a really good performance.”
Celtic now face two away games – against Borussia Dortmund and Atalanta – before hosting RB Leipzig. “We know our next three games are really tough games but they're exciting games for us," said Rodgers. "I thought tonight we had to make a really good start in the competition. I think we made a fantastic start. We got three points on the board and it's now a back-to-back wins at this level from the last game against Feyenoord and here. It's a little step but important steps for us moving forward.”
He admitted it was important to start reversing a trend of defeats, many of them heavy, at this level.
“I've been in a lot of those,” he said. “But like I say, I came back to improve us as a club at the level. Because in my career, I've won big games. I know what it takes to win big games. I felt that as a club and as a team, we want to make that and should want to make that next step. There's huge credit to the board that they supported that over the course of the summer. You saw that on show this evening. That belief is important but that comes from a level of player and it comes from the work that we're doing with the players.
“It's been really difficult over a long period of time for Celtic at this level. I want to change that mood and that feeling. We've worked on that from the beginning of pre-season to get to this point where we can have that belief,” he added. “It's a big testament to the players and how hungry they were in the game.”
He had urged the players to try to take the emotion out of the occasion and play like they do in the Scottish Premiership every week.
“Just don't overthink it,” he said. “That's what's key. The razzmatazz around the Champions League is amazing. You see the stadium wrapped with all the Champions League (branding). It's different tiers, different levels but it's still the same idea of how we want to work.”
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