TALKING CELTIC
IN PARIS WITH CELTIC ARIS is famed as a city of romance but for visiting football managers these days this usually tends to be of the doomed variety.
The £800m outlay which Qatar Sport Investments’ have sanctioned on their plaything in the last six years tends to leave even large clubs marooned in modest football markets like Celtic returning from the French capital broken-hearted.
All Bayern Munich had to remember the place by earlier in the campaign was a humbling 3-0 defeat.
It is a good thing, therefore, that Brendan Rodgers is not the type to get too bogged down in things like Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules and how at times they seem utterly powerless to prevent clubs such as PSG from making the playing fields of continental football even more lop-sided than they currently are.
Instead, the message from the Northern Irishman as he arrived at the stadium ahead of Celtic’s latest brush with the billionaires of Bolougne-Billancourt was a directive to pick your battles.
Forget about measuring yourselves too closely against stratospheric world stars like Neymar, Edinson Cavani and Kylian Mbappe.
And instead concentrate on demonstrating your progression from the side which, by Rodgers own untypical admisstion, played like a startled “Under-12 side” in the 5-0 defeat against these same opponents at Celtic Park back in September.
And for those who say that the task facing Celtic in Paris tonight is of a similar order to that which little Ross County shouldered bravely in Dingwall facing the Scottish champions on league business, Rodgers is having none of it.
“I’m not naive enough not to know the level we are playing against here,” said Rodgers. “We are up against the best of the best.
“It’s not just a one-tier jump up,” he added. “This is really operating against the world’s best. That can be difficult.
“People say it’s similar for Celtic playing in Scotland but it’s totally different to teams in the Premiership playing against us. Okay we’ve got certain added bits of quality in one or two areas of the field. Of course we have the highest budget and there is expectancy to win but if you go from where we are at to the best players in world football, we’re not talking about the jump to playing against a team from the Premier League or the best team in Belgium or Norway.
“You are up against the elite on the planet here. But that is the competition. That is what
Pwe are in it for, to play in and develop.
“My intention is always ‘okay, I respect that – but let’s make them fight’. You can still come out of a game having lost, as we did against Bayern last time, and have pride.
“You can have people saying ‘you’re a good side and you’re tough to play against’. So that’s the aim. Even though PSG have a group of players who are steam-rolling everyone, can we go and put on a performance which gives us pride in it?”
Rodgers is correct to make capital from the narrow, and rather unfortunate, 2-1 home defeat to an equally vaunted Bayern Munich side on their previous outing.
WHILE it suggested Celtic, not least homegrown stars like James Forrest and Callum McGregor, had shown progression in their level of Champions League play this season, equally a heavy defeat tonight would cast doubt upon that, not to mention being a bit of a buzzkill ahead of Sunday’s Betfred Cup final against Motherwell.
By contrast, simply being the first team to score against PSG in the Champions League this season – their record currently stands at 17 goals for and none against – would represent something of an achievement.
“It’s about developing the personality of the team when you play teams of this level,” said Rodgers.
“I recognise that at that point in time [September] PSG had just brought in £400m worth of players. They were excited themselves, it was their first Champions League game together and we probably bore the brunt of their quality and ambition. We have to take defeat and it can be hard at times but that one, on that first night was tough. There are a number of people who have told me that was the best away performance they have seen at Celtic Park.
HE ADDED: “It certainly does make a mockery of [Financial Fair Play rules] because it is hard to find where the fair play is in it. But I don’t tend to get bogged down in that side of it. Now you have countries looking after clubs, not just rich owners. But there are rules there to govern the game and they have to try to stick by them the best they can.”