'Something about six': Brendan Rodgers reveals senior first in Celtic's Madrid nightmare as he lifts lid on Atletico antics

The Celtic manager recalls the only other time he picked up a card

There was plenty for Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers to struggle to believe his eyes over in the 6-0 bleaching for hot his 10-man team in Madrid this week. (Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group)

The furore over Daizen Maeda’s hotly-disputed early red card in Celtic’s 6-0 slaughter by Atletico Madrid understandably caused the significance of another colour brandished by Slovakian referee Ivan Kruzliak to be overlooked in Tuesday’s Champions League encounter.

The exasperation felt by Brendan Rodgers over the official’s decision to dismiss the Japanese winger – and the antics of the Atletico bench as Kruzliak was called over to his VAR monitor to assess the contact made between the feet of Maeda and Mario Hermoso as both kicked out towards a loose ball in the 21st minute – resulted in the Celtic manager being given a yellow card. On the back of a 15-year, 700-game senior coaching career wherein he had never been sanctioned by a referee.

The 50-year-old agrees it is ridiculous Celtic are now the only one in the competition to have received three reds – “especially with this team…” he said of his band of generally slight ball players – following two bookings for Gustaf Lagerbielke and a straight red handed to Odin Thiago Holm in the 2-0 defeat away to Feyenoord. And that the word could be applied to the circumstances that led to him falling foul of a referee for the first time since he was Chelsea youth coach in the late 2000s.

“I could see Odin’s [being a red] as his foot was raised a wee bit. Gus’s wasn’t a sending off, neither was Daizen’s,” Rodgers said. “I know they are bad when I get a yellow card…The last time I remember getting one was in a youth game, believe it or not when we were 6-0 down. It was at West Ham, I’ll never forget it. It must be something about six goals…

“I don’t like to be like that, but the irony was I was looking at their whole bench trying to get our play sent off. I saw the referee walking towards the screen and they all followed him. I tried to go and offer a different perspective – and I got booked … I don’t think we deserved the cards but we have to accept it.”