WE’LL SOAR INTO ORBIT IF I CAN STOP PSG FORCE
Gordon is out to put breaks on Neymar and co
Just to be at that level, he’d defied a career- threatening injury and battled back from the brink of quitting the game altogether.
That’s why the dejection at being left out of Celtic’s opening group fixture against Barcelona a year ago is still very fresh in the memory.
After it, the big keeper – as he has done throughout the last 10 years – got the head down and forced his way back into Brendan Rodgers’ starting line-up.
Soon, he replaced Dorus De Vries to re-establish himself as the Hoops’ undisputed No.1.
And he played in every other Champions League match against Barca at home, Manchester City and Borussia Monchengladbach.
Now, he’s ready for the big stage again with PSG, Bayern Munich and Anderlecht lying in wait for Celtic this season.
The French side, Neymar and all, will visit Parkhead on Tuesday night and Gordon is relishing the prospect of facing the £200million Brazilian and his pals.
At least this time, f itness permitting, Gordon can fully focus on the tie knowing that he’s now one of the first names on Rodgers’ teamsheet.
As he prepared for the mouth-watering Group B clash in midweek, the Scotland goalie said: “PSG is a big one, it’s going to be huge on Tuesday night.
“It’s where we’ve worked so hard to get to, to test ourselves on these occasions.
“This time last year at the Nou Camp wasn’t great for me.
“I’d worked throughout my career to get to somewhere like that and have a go at it.
“So it was a blow. But that’s football, I’ve had plenty of other setbacks with injuries.
“At least I wasn’t out for two years – it was one game. I had to put it into context and quickly try to get back in the team.
“Dorus came in and played a couple of games leading up to the Barcelona one. So I was aware that was going to be the case going there.
“It didn’t make it any easier to take but I had to get on with it and do the best I could.
“Now we’re up against the likes of PSG and Munich and that’s what you work for – to test yourself on that stage.
“So we’re looking forward to it. We want to give a good account of ourselves this year and try to get some more points in the group section.
“We’ll try to express ourselves more – but we’re up against good teams so it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be able to.”
Gordon will be charged with keeping out a PSG forward line that will consist of Neymar, Edinson Cavani and French wonderkid Kylian Mbappe on Tuesday evening.
That’s not to mention the likes of Angel di Maria and Julian Draxler in reserve.
Gordon knows all about their quality and revealed that gaffer Rodgers and the Celtic squad will pore over PSG footage in a bid to find a way to stop them.
He said: “That forward line’s not bad but I wouldn’t swap them for ours!
“Listen, it’s great to think you’re going to play against the talent they’ve got. And we’ll be quietly confident that we can do something against them – and get a result.
“We’re not daunted by it, we just want to go and play. We’re confident in our own ability.
“We believe in our own team, to be able to handle the situation and do something in the game.
“It doesn’t matter who’s in the other team. We go into every game thinking we’ve got a chance of winning it.
“We’ll look at the opposition beforehand. The manager’s really good in his preparation and analysis of teams. We’ll do that over the next few days.
“I’ve seen Neymar score plenty of goals already and he’s a great player. But we’ll watch videos to see how we’re going to go about it defensively – how we’re going to shape up.
“It’s not going to be easy but we’ ll see if there are areas where we can stop them.
“The information is more readily available now and we always try to get that little edge in terms of analysis.”
Compared to a year ago, Gordon is convinced that Rodgers’ men are in better nick going into this Champions League campaign.
And he’s not just talking about the arrivals of Olivier Ntcham, Patrick Roberts or Odsonne Edouard.
The Hoops keeper insists the work Rodgers has done on the training ground for the last 12 months has all been geared towards this crack at Europe’s top competition. He said: “We’re better now than we were a year ago. We’ve been together longer, we’ve worked at the style of play and formations that the manager wants us to play.
“So tactically, we’re better than we were at the start of the previous campaign.
“We’ve trained for this for over a year now.
“It ’ s another tough group. Last season in the Champions League we did well at times.
“But we need to step that up again this year.”