DON’T COMPARE ME TO A LEGEND
Rodgers is grateful to be likened to Stein but wants to write his own Celts history
AN intelligent man, Brendan Rodgers is wary of drawing parallels between himself and Jock Stein. There’s little he can do when the boss does it, of course.
This week, chief executive Peter Lawwell labelled the Northern Irishman, standing on the cusp of a domestic Treble, the modern-day incarnation of Stein.
‘It’s hard to say that,’ said Rodgers, shifting uneasily in his seat. ‘It’s different times, different eras. I have only been here virtually a season.
‘Every manager is different. Different cycle, different way of working. Times are different now. You do different things. I didn’t know Jock. I never knew Jock, so I could never comment. If any of them ever think that, then of course it’s an honour.’
That Celtic’s present could dove-tail neatly with the club’s past this afternoon is undeniable. The Lisbon Lions became the first Celtic team to complete a domestic clean sweep 50 years ago.
They did it by beating Aberdeen at Hampden and if the current side do the same, they become only the fourth in Parkhead history to win all three major trophies in the same season.
That’s a long way from Rodgers being the new Jock Stein.
But Sir Alex Ferguson praised Stein in these pages for taking a group of young footballers from a low ebb and changing ‘not only the personalities of the players, but the very character of the team’.
Adding Scott Sinclair and Moussa Dembele and rejuvenating some under-achieving players in a remarkably short space of time Rodgers has, like Stein before him, transformed the personality and character of a team.
‘There are maybe similarities in that,’ conceded Rodgers. ‘I wanted to work with the same players there.
‘In terms of how we wanted to play, we wanted one or two other characteristics in the team — but giving players that emotional strength was important.
‘You have to have that emotional strength in order to cope with the demands. It was important that the players understood that.
‘I know there were maybe one or two of them who were playing okay. They were doing all right. But to be a standout, to be a top player, there are certain characteristics that you need. You can work on that and develop it. Hopefully, over time, you foster a mindset that breeds confidence and allows you to win.’
Celtic’s confidence is such now they find it hard to envisage a defeat today. History and omens are on their side.
The Scottish Cup would complete the club’s first Treble in 16 years.
Stein’s Celtic added a second clean sweep in 1969 before Martin O’Neill’s team repeated the feat back in 2001.
Rodgers met his fellow Northern Irishman at Thursday’s celebration concert for the Lions, but declined the opportunity to swap notes.
‘We just spoke generally really,’ said the current manager. ‘All the guys were very complimentary, of course.
‘I spoke briefly to Martin before and after it was all finished. He just congratulated us on the season.
‘When you have stood in these shoes you know what it’s like. Neil (Lennon), Kenny (Dalglish), Martin, Gordon (Strachan), they all understand, they all know what the pressures are at this club.’
Sitting alongside Sir Alex at the SSE Hydro, Rodgers revelled in the lessons and anecdotes passed down from Ferguson’s mentor Stein.
‘The longer I have been in here, the more detail I get to know about Jock,’ continued Rodgers (below). ‘When I can listen to Danny McGrain and John Clark, these guys give me little bits of gold dust every day about how it was back then.
‘You think back to him and what he created for, not just Scottish football, but British football as a whole. He was the figure who inspired all the other British teams into thinking they could achieve something.
‘Not just in any way either, in a particular way. At that time in Europe, football was very defensive. He brought in a creative style, an unpredictable way of playing, an attacking style that is synonymous with Celtic to this day.
‘Jock had a way of working that every other manager after him had to measure themselves by. That was what they were judged on.
‘You couldn’t just win at Celtic, that wasn’t enough, you had to win in a particular style.
‘That is what he brought to the club.’
Celtic have won football games with a Stein-like flourish this season. There were times under Ronny Deila when winning felt like a chore, Hampden their personal torture chamber.
That’s all gone now. The first trophy of the Rodgers era was a comfortable 3-0 win over today’s opponents in the Betfred League Cup final and, since then, people have tried — and failed — to predict this team’s demise. Defeat today would surprise everyone because Celtic have already beaten Aberdeen five times this season. Predictions of an upset are based on nothing stronger than blind faith.
As Rodgers pointed out: ‘There have been so many games — you guys have written about it and spoken about it — “this could be the chance” when we went to Ibrox or went to Pittodrie, Tynecastle, Hampden.
‘If you want to be successful, it is always there. It is not going away.
‘If you want to go somewhere else, play good for two or three weeks on the spin, then lose some games, that’s fine; you shouldn’t be here.
‘To be here is to win. To learn to do that the best way you can, to play football to the level that we have, you have to be able to cope with pressure. The players have shown they can cope in every game they have been in. Hopefully we can finish that off now.’
Under Rodgers, Celtic have not only coped. They have thrived.
Big-name managers arrive at big clubs to expectations and demands they cannot possibly meet. The current Celtic manager hasn’t just met every demand, he has smashed them. His reward could be a place amongst Celtic’s managerial icons.
‘I’ll think about it after if it happens,’ he parried. ‘If it does, great. If it doesn’t, it’s okay, I’ve done my best.
‘History always judges you as a manager and a player.
‘It doesn’t affect me, whatever I have on my CV. It doesn’t matter to me, really.
‘But for the history of the club, for the ambitions of the club, I always want to win.’