STILL SEARCHING FOR A BIG SCALP
Rodgers wants his own iconic wins but purely on his terms
MARTIN O’NEILL beat up the Ol d Lady of Juventus. Gordon Strachan di d likewise to AC Milan and Manchester United. Neil Lennon toppled Lionel Messi’s Barcelona.
When it comes to the Champions League, Celtic managers can lay claim to some sizeable scalps. Iconic victories they can add to the CV and dine out on for years to come.
Brendan Rodgers is not there yet, the growing financial chasm between Europe’s elite and large clubs from small countries making marquee victories a rare and precious feat.
He came close in last season’s 3-3 draw with Manchester City, his team holding the lead three times. For Rodgers, Barcelona and Paris Saint- Germain were a different story. Both travelled to Glasgow and won easily.
A home game against a Bayern Munich side without Robert Lewandowski or Thomas Muller offers hope, but no real expectation. Celtic’s last home win in the group stage of this tournament was a 2-1 win over Ajax in 2013. Two weeks ago, the Scottish champions lost 3-0 in Munich and Rodgers can offer no empty promises of better tonight.
‘I don’t need it,’ claimed the Celtic boss. ‘I think we all want it. We would love to have that — but I have an inherent belief in what we do and, hopefully, we have seen that in 17 months.
‘At this level, of course, it is remarkably difficult but we must keep working towards it. That is the next step for us.’
The goal for Celtic in this group has been consistent from the start. Beat Anderlecht at home in the final game and Scotland’s champions will secure a place i n the Europa League after Christmas.
Qualification for the last-16 of the Champions League remains possible if they beat the Bavarians tonight. But Rodgers won’t compromise on his attacking principles for the sake of bagging a big beast of European football.
‘We want to impose our own style in a competition of this level that gets results,’ he said. ‘Beating Bayern would be a great result and it gives you confidence — but you have to do more than that, surely.
‘It is good to get a result and good if you can perform well and it is brilliant for the supporters, but you can’t become complacent enough to think that it does you for two or three years.
‘My job as the leader is to think of the bigger picture, what our goals are and I am a realist.
‘Our notion of what we want to try and do — as it was the minute I came in here — was to get Celtic respect at the very top table.
‘I think it is all nice, the dreamy stuff of winning a game and feeding off it for a couple of years but the reality is you have to strive to build something — and that is about sustaining what we are doing.’
O’Neill’s 4-3 win over Juventus in 2001 notwithstanding, Celtic’s biggest home wins in t his competition tend to be triumphs for pragmatism over idealism.
The famous 2-1 win over Barcelona in 2012 came despite a final possession statistic of 29 per cent.
On this subject Rodgers is consistent. Parking the bus or changing his ethos for short-term gain is alien to the way he manages football teams.
He tried it early in his coaching career. In February 2009, his Watford team languished in the relegation zone of the English Championship and faced a Swansea team unbeaten in their last 16 games.
‘I wasn’t that long in there,’ he recalled. ‘And we were in that sort of way when we were pragmatic, and sat in, and had a defensive block and played on the counter attack. We won 2-0. And it was one of the worst games I’ve been involved in. To make it even worse, someone handed me the performance of the week award.
‘ I had Malky Mackay, Sean Dyche, all my assistants, absolutely buzzing and I knew at that point I’d put a life’s work into developing a certain way of playing and I had a commitment to that.
‘When you are linked into something like that, it’s hard to say: “Let’s just sit in and wait for the game”. When I hear people who have no commitment, talking about being pragmatic… hold on a minute, what about all the other times you really enjoy our football?
‘Pep Guardiola, if he is playing really exciting football, he’s not all of a sudden in one game going to sit back and be pragmatic. That’s not what he believes in, it’s not how he works.
‘And that’s how I work. So… unlucky.
‘I’m not going to be sat in on 25 metres. I say that now, come back to me tomorrow night. But it certainly won’t be intentional.’
Accusations of naivety and idealism fall on deaf ears. By his own admission, Rodgers has no idea where that award for beating Swansea is now, saying: ‘I’m not sure where it went. It was great for the players, but…’
The philosophy — the desire to change the culture of Celtic — extends beyond the first team. Rodgers surprised the club’s Under-14s team on Monday by taking their training session at Lennoxtown.
‘To some managers it doesn’t really matter because they think: “When these ones are 17, 18, I’ll be gone”,’ said Rodgers. ‘I don’t see it like that. It is a legacy for me, however long I am here, to give my very best for the duration.
‘If you plant the seed now, okay, I might see the fruits of that, but someone else will. Celtic will, and that’s important to me. If I am helping, then that’s a duty of care.’
Rodgers’ presence might have turned some of the Celtic kids into nervous wrecks.
Yet he spends much of his time preaching a consistent message to players at all levels. Whoever plays for Bayern tonight — and for all the talk of Lewandowski and Muller missing, Jupp Heynckes has James Rodriguez and Arturo Vidal to come in — Rodgers wants his side to be ‘relaxed but focused’.
‘The home games are the real opportunity for you, especially against the bigger sides. That’s what we aim to do. That’s our plan,’ he said.
‘You have an obligation when you are a big team and a big club and that’s how Celtic play. Evidence has shown over many years here — there have been some good results but, in the main, it has been really difficult for Celtic at this level.
‘So if it’s going to be difficult and you are going to suffer, at least try and do it in the way you want to do it.’