I JUST HOPE NEYMAR’S LOT DON’T BEAT US 7-0!
Brendan Rodgers on Liverpool, Celtic and taking on PSG in the Champions League...
IT probably isn’t the answer a room crammed full of 500 Celtic supporters wants to hear, but it still draws a roar of approval.
‘What is your ambition in the Champions league this season?’ comes the question from the floor. Celtic host paris Saint-Germain and their new £370million strikeforce of Neymar and Kylian Mbappe a week tomorrow.
‘Try not to lose the first game 7-0,’ returns brendan rodgers. ‘We’re playing against 11 motorbikes, aren’t we?’
The mass of green and white appreciate their manager’s honesty. Cue laughter and applause.
‘but listen, I want us to be playing European football after Christmas, that’s the aim,’ adds rodgers, hinting that qualifying for the Europa league by finishing third behind pSG and bayern Munich and ahead of anderlecht might not be the worst outcome.
‘The games against pSG and bayern are going to be great nights. and the one thing I will say is this: having been a manager around the world and inside some of the biggest stadiums, there is a noise at Celtic park you just don’t get anywhere else.’
a flavour of that passion could be tasted here in belfast on Saturday night. That noise. rodgers — born and raised about 30 miles north in Carnlough — is back on his home patch, back among the belfast-based Celtic following of which he once belonged.
There is also one fan of liverpool, the club rodgers took to a second-place finish in the premier league in 2014. at one point, the Scouser dares to take the mic. There are boos before he starts. ‘I would just like to say thank you, brendan, they don’t know how lucky they are. The door at liverpool is always open.’ The jeers have turned to cheers.
‘What’s in that beer?’ rodgers replies. ‘but thank you. I came as close as anyone there to the holy grail of winning the league. That season, with the fans, it was special.’
rodgers is here to raise money for the Northern Ireland Hospice. He lost both parents to cancer within a year of each other and is an ambassador for the charity.
a Northern Ireland and republic of Ireland youth international, he had a trial at Manchester United at 14 but eventually signed for reading, where a knee injury ended his playing career aged 20.
perhaps the best question of the night asks of him, ‘Would you swap your managerial career to go back and have a playing career?’
‘ I wouldn’t, no,’ he answers, ‘because I wasn’t very good. My dream was to play for Celtic. My uncle wrote a letter to the club when I was 14 asking them to watch his nephew. billy McNeill was manager at the time and we got a reply saying they’d seen me for Northern Ireland, so they already thought I wasn’t good enough! So now I’m lucky enough to manage Celtic — it’s my club.’
rodgers, however, does not fear mentioning the influence on him of a former rangers man, Sir alex Ferguson.
‘I used to go to United’s training ground, the Cliff, for two weeks at a time,’ he recalls of his trial. ‘but the thing that stands out was that every day I saw Sir alex. I look back on it as a manager now and think, “Wow, the time he invested in young players”.’
again, it prompts applause. That, however, does not compare to the eruption that soon follows. Talk has turned to rangers and their return to the Spl. ‘ Is it better for Celtic and for Scottish football?’ the host ventures, ‘to have rangers back as a rival?’
rodgers replies: ‘If you’re in a race, you never look back, you always look forward. The only football club I ever worry about is Celtic.’
He was appointed in May last year, seven months after being sacked by liverpool. His first season brought the domestic treble and, Europe apart, an unbeaten campaign.
‘When I came out of liverpool I needed a break. It was so intense. It was draining. We moved to london just to come away from it,’ he says, nodding to his wife, Charlotte, who is in the audience.
‘I had offers from England and a couple from China, where the money is very good, and that’s tempting for a boy from Northern Ireland.
‘but I had come out of one of the biggest institutions in the world and I had to find that pressure again. I’ve got that now. With liverpool er you can go away from home and draw and that’s Ok. but Celtic, you have to win every game. It’s a different pressure.’
So what does the future ho hold?
‘ I’m 44 now. The idea wa was to get to 60 and have as many different experiences en as possible,’ he says. I’ve done a lot already, good and bad.
‘but everything was a rush for me when I was younger. I’m settled now. I’ve happily signed a four-year deal and I would love to see that through. I’m a lucky man. If I wasn’t stood on the sideline I’d be in with you guys. I just want to make you proud.’
His audience rise to their feet and switch from football fans to choir members in a beat.
‘This is how it feels to be Celtic, champions again as you know, brendan rodgers is here for 10 in a row, 10 in a row…’ they sing.
rodgers, it seems, can do no wrong, even if Celtic do lose 7-0 a week tomorrow.