CELTIC v BARCELONA
Brendan Rodgers has hailed Lionel Messi as the greatest of his generation – but the Celtic boss is more determined than ever to put the brakes on the Barcelona genius.
The Argentine artist already has seven goals in just three Group C games so far this season, including hat-tricks against the Hoops and Manchester City.
In Rodgers’ mind, these simply add to a set of eye-watering stats that mark him out as untouchable in the modern era – 526 goals in 661 games, 90 in 109 in Europe alone.
Now he has to find a way to curtail his brilliance on Wednesday night, proving the £100m Man City target recovers from his stomach bug.
Rodgers said: “For me, he’s the best. I can only talk for now. My father, God bless him, loved Pele and I loved Diego Maradona.
“But now it’s hard between Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo because it’s just what you prefer.
“If I could sign just one of them, though? Messi, because he excites you, doesn’t he? He’s the type of player I love and he works his socks off.
“He has proven himself against superior teams to us and shown that he can make the difference.”
No game against Barcelona is ever going to be easy – but turning around the bruising 7- 0 beating they took at the Nou Camp needs a leap of faith from players and fans alike.
However, Rodgers won’t be hiding from that result. He said: “We talked about it after the game because you have to. You can’t ignore it.
“You will always analyse it. Should we have done that, should we have done this – but we’re all captains of hindsight. I will make mistakes and lose more games.
“So we sit down and talk about it and not beat about the bush. Let’s be honest, frank and open.
“That’s our lever to move on and that’s what we did – we respond and keep on developing.
“It’s still going to be an incredibly tough game for us against a brilliant team. But with each day and week, the team is improving.
“We know they are some of the top players ever but we have to get up to them and see how they cope when you are in their faces.”
Fellow Northern Irishman Neil Lennon has already proven that lightning can strike when you least expect it though.
That 2-1 win over the Catalans in 2012, thanks t o Tony Wa t t ’ s cl incher, reverberated around Europe. And Rodgers said: “It was an incredible result. It was one of those games played in the two boxes.
“It was a case of ‘ defend for your life’, then they got the goal from the set-piece at the other end.
“The breakaway was a great counter- attack goal and the boy finished it well. I was delighted for Neil. It was a brilliant result.”
There were negative consequences as well as positive ones for Celtic from the result, though.
The attention it created around the likes of Victor Wanyama and Fraser Forster increased the inevitability of their departures.
Rodgers said: “I arrived here knowing that the better we do, the more people will come to watch.
“The beauty of developing the team is that individuals will prosper and be sought after.”
When Tony Watt was igniting his fledgling career with a wonder goal, the injured keeper was trying to salvage his.
Gordon was in limbo, with his future in the game hanging by a thread.
He offered to help out Ian Murray, who was Sons boss, with goalkeeping coaching to keep him busy.
The notion that four years later it would be Gordon between the sticks for Celtic keeping out Lionel Messi & Co would have been ludicrous.
But not so. On Wednesday night, the 33-year-old will take on the Spanish giants in the Champions League as Celtic and Scotland’s No.1 keeper.
And incredibly, Gordon reckons he’s now a better goalie than the one who moved from Hearts to Sunderland in 2007 for £9million.
He knows he watched Celtic’s historic 2-1 victory over Barca. He just can’t remember where.
Understandably, Gordon’s mind was elsewhere at that stage as he tried to plot an unlikely comeback.
He said: “I can’t remember what I was doing. I might have been at Dumbarton helping out but I’m sure I watched the game.
Hopefully we can