Fan-tastic: Rodgers seeks repeat performance
When Celtic supporters get behind their team, even world superstars can panic. Just ask Manchester City’s players. Brendan Rodgers would like more of the same this week – from the fans and his squad, hears Stewart Fisher
SUPPORTERS don’t win football matches, right? How can that old line about the fans at Celtic Park being a 12th man be anything more than cliched old claptrap when it comes to Manchester City and throwing seasoned world superstars such as Sergio Aguero and David Silva off their stride?
Well, you might be surprised. Stats show that at Century Link Field in Seattle and Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, the two American football stadiums vying for the record decibel level recorded at a sporting ground, there is a clear increase in false start and delay of game penalties as visiting teams literally cannot hear themselves speak.
In England, not only are West Ham struggling to adjust to the new dimensions of the Olympic stadium, but their fans are now seated a fair distance from the playing surface and the atmosphere is nothing like as hostile – for their opponents anyway.
And Manchester City certainly felt the noise during their visit to Celtic Park in the Champions League three weeks ago. Brendan Rodgers had that confirmed by former Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher, who was among the crowd. On Wednesday night, it will be Borussia Monchengladbach’s turn to look out the earplugs.
“The people I spoke to after the game – celebrities – said they had heard nothing like it before,” the Celtic manager said. “I spoke to Noel Gallagher and the last game he was here for was the 6-2 game against Rangers under Martin O’Neill. He said the Man City game was at another level in terms of noise.”
The fans don’t do all this by themselves, of course. Anyone with a grasp of crowd dynamics knows it is incumbent on the home team to give their fans something to shout about. The way Celtic stormed out of the traps against Pep Guardiola’s side and took an early lead did that, while an early goal from Borussia on Wednesday night would have the opposite effect.
“It’s a combination of both,” said Rodgers. “The crowd don’t get to that level if the team aren’t performing but we do have a special connection at the minute between the supporters and the players. We started the Man City game like we have in all games, with great intensity, and the crowd feed off that. It was a special night although it was obviously disappointing that we didn’t win the game and that’s why I was a bit sullen afterwards. But the performance of the players was brilliant and so were the supporters.”
While the crowd inspires their own players to give that little bit more, midfielder Nir Bitton believes even City’s raft of world superstars collectively lost their heads in the cauldron of Celtic Park. He knows it because he saw the look of panic in the whites of their eyes. A shell-shocked City side still appeared to be suffering the aftereffects when they crumbled in the face of a similar pressing onslaught from Tottenham Hotspur in England’s Premier League the following weekend. “The atmosphere lifts us, everyone saw that against City,” said Bitton. “They had world-class players and for the first 20 minutes they were in shock. If you see Aguero, David Silva, you could see they were in shock. There was panic in the defence and the players were just booting the ball.
“Aguero has played for a long time in the Premier League but with all due respect, they won’t have faced that kind of atmosphere there. No stadium has that atmosphere.
“You don’t normally see that kind of thing from Pep Guardiola’s teams. I don’t think they were ready for it. That night the atmosphere was the best I have ever played in, I can’t compare it with anything else. Celtic Park on European nights is something different, it gives you goosebumps.”
On Wednesday’s game, Bitton added: “We just need to make sure we make the most of it. We need to make sure Gladbach are just as thrown. It’s about how we start the game and how we play.
“The crowd can help but we can’t give their players space and time. We need to press them the same way as we did against City.”
So well did Rodgers’ side perform against Manchester City that it is possible some complacency may have crept in – from the supporters as much as the players – ahead of the meeting with a side who sat ninth in the Bundesliga prior to last night’s match against Hamburg. However, Borussia are not known as the best of travellers having won just four times on the road in more than a year under new manager Andre Schubert.
FOOTBALL has been known to confound expectation but the likeliest outcome is that Celtic’s back-to-back meetings with Monchengladbach will determine whether the Scottish champions live on in Europe beyond Christmas in the Europa League. Rodgers reckons four points from the two match is an attainable target.
“If we can come out of the back-toback games with four points it puts you in a great position,” he said. “It is tough but if you are being realistic that is what you have to aim for. You look to win your home game and get something away from home, though it is not a disaster if you don’t.
“I don’t think [the crowd will be complacent against Borussia]. They are well schooled in European football and will have seen the growth of Borussia in recent years.
“They haven’t started the season so well but they are a talented team. They play 3-4-3, young [Thorgan] Hazard has been a big talent for them, they have a young boy [Marcus] Christensen on loan from Chelsea and a good, young, highly