Celtic aim high and refuse to be cowed by Neymar and Co
● Rodgers won’t settle for third place against Bayern, PSG and Anderlecht
Brendan Rodgers will refuse to allow Celtic to simply set their sights on third place in a tantalising Champions League group which has bracketed them with Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-germain and Anderlecht.
The draw at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco set the Scottish champions as daunting a challenge as they could face against five-times European champions Bayern and French giants PSG, who smashed the world transfer record with their £198 million capture of Brazilian superstar Neymar from Barcelona.
Most observers have already identified Celtic’s best hope of extending this season’s European campaign beyond Christmas as a race for third place in Group B with Belgian championsanderlecht,which would secure progress to the last 32 of the Europa League.
But Celtic assistant manager Chrisdaviesinsiststhatmindset simply won’t be tolerated by Rodgers as they try to upset the odds and reach the last 16 of the Champions League.
“Third place is what people will immediately look to,” admitted Davies. “But from our perspective it certainly won’t be the message that we’re internally giving to the players from the manager. That’s just not the way that we work, that we’re resigning ourselves to third place.
“A club of this size doesn’t do that. You have to look to each game and give it everything and see what happens. The challenges are clear and are clearly really big for us. We will be playing probably two of the biggest and best clubs in world football in our group. But, having said that, the record that we have got at Celtic Park is always something that works in our favour.
“For us, qualifying is a fantastic achievement and you have to look at what you are up against now. There is a massive gap which has opened up in Europe, more than ever, between some of these elite teams and the rest. You have to be mindful of that. The money PSG are spending on one player alone is incredible.
“But it’s not as if we have players who haven’t played at this level before. We’ve got some excellent players ourselves with Champions League and international experience.
“Neymar has gone to PSG with that enormous transfer fee but he is someone our players have played against last season when he was with Barcelona, so that’s a good reference for them in terms of their level. That will give them confidence.
“You look at the draw and there are world-class players in every group. Brendan is a realistic, pragmatic manager. But, at the same time, he gives players belief and confidence. He has a lot of confidence in the way we play and what we can produce. It is an exciting challenge, not one which scares us.”
Davies was also at pains to rebut criticism of Celtic’s defensive strength in the wake of their 4-3 defeat against Astana in Kazakhstan this week in the second leg of a play-off round tie they won 8-4 on aggregate.
“You have to look at the context of the game,” he said. “We were up against a team putting enormous risk into it, we had a lot of injuries. They were the first goals we’ve conceded in six qualifiers this season and we’ve only conceded one in domestic football.
“We are now going to be playing against teams who are favourites to beat you. You are the underdog against the likes of PSG and Bayern.
“It’s not something that is new to Celtic, going into these kind of games against really good teams. We are going to embrace it and look forward to it. We are going to control what we can in terms of planning for the games tactically.
“It’s an exciting challenge for us all, The players can look forward to going out and showing the same personality they did away to Moenchengladbach, Manchester City and Rosenborg – references where, in good European venues, we performed well.”
The scale of the task facing Celtic in Group B of this season’s Champions League can be illustrated in many ways – most of them daunting, all of them appetising.
When the greatest show in European club football kicks off in the east end of Glasgow on 12 September, visitors Paris Saint-germain will line up with the world’s most expensive footballer as just one part of their formidable armoury.
To put it in some kind of perspective, Brazilian forward Neymar’s £198 million fee could fetch you around 40 Olivier Ntchams in the current market. At £4.5m, the French midfielder was Celtic’s biggest buy in a decade when he was recruited from Manchester City this summer.
But, when Ntcham lines up against the club he supported as a boy, he insists he and his team-mates won’t be fazed by either the price tags or reputations of some of the continent’s most illustrious names.
In a group which also pits Celtic against German heavyweights Bayern Munich and Belgian champions Anderlecht, the 21-year-old from the southern suburbs of Paris is relishing the challenge.
“Everything can happen in football,” said Ntcham. “Even if you spend £400m on a player, every other player in the pitch has to fit around them as well. We don’t have a target of what we can achieve in this group, we will just go on the pitch and play.
“It’s a very exciting draw and I’m quite happy because I wanted to play against PSG because they were my team as a boy. I was a big fan. It’s the first time I’ll have played against their first team. My hero as a kid was Pauleta, the striker.
“I have two friends who are with PSG now – the defender Presnel Kimpembe and midfielder Adrien Rabiot. I played against them when we were younger a couple of times.”
There is also a Gallic connection for Ntcham to savour in Celtic’s meetings with top seeds Bayern. In addition to veteran French midfielder Franck Ribery, the five-times European champions can also call on the services of Ntcham’s age group international teammate Kingsley Coman.
“I know Kingsley well because we played together for the national team,” added Ntcham. “Franck Ribery is a player I have always admired a lot. I think it is incredible how his career has developed.
“He didn’t come through the academy level. He went elsewhere and played a lot of football and got a move straight to Marseille. Then he went to Bayern Munich. The way he came through in football was a lot harder and he has been a big inspiration for me.”
After their opener at home to PSG, Celtic will travel to Brussels to take on third seeds Anderlecht on 27 September. Europa League quarter-finalists last season, where they lost 3-2 on aggregate to eventual winners Manchester United, Anderlecht have made a poor start to the current campaign with just one win from their first four league games. The eye-catching name in their squad is that of Nigerian forward Henry Onyekuru, on loan from Everton, who was a target for Celtic last season.
“He is a talent,” said Celtic assistant manager Chris Davies. “He has good pace and technical ability and got some goals towards the second half of last season. He was on a good goal run.
“He is just someone we had looked at, someone we had monitored over an extended period. But it was never that close. He was just a player that we liked and looked at and were aware of.
“There was a lot of speculation that he was going to other clubs so he obviously attracted a lot of interest. He has gone back out on loan. He is going to be a threat, but we have got equal and better threats.”
After the trip to Belgium, it will be a double header against Bayern, at the Allianz Arena on 18 October and at Celtic Park on 31 October, before facing PSG in Paris on 22 November and finishing at home to Anderlecht on 5 December.
It is a group which has echoes of 2003-4, when Celtic faced Bayern Munich, Anderlecht and another French club, Lyon, under Martin O’neill. They finished third and eventually reached the quarterfinals of the Uefa Cup.
For Ntcham, pictured, it is the trip to the Parc des Princes three months from now which will be ringed in red in his diary. He said: “All of my family will be excited to see me play there.
“There will be a lot of pride and emotion. This is why I came to Celtic, for Champions League football, and to play in Paris will be extra special.”
Ntchamhasmadeanimpressive start to his Celtic career and as he starts to unlock his considerable potential, he revealed he owes a special debt of gratitude to his mother Annmarie who, it seems, ensured football’s gain is a loss for an unlikely trio of boxing, basketball and… breakdancing. “When my family lived in Canada for two years, from when I was 10, I wanted to give up football and play basketball instead,” said Ntcham. “My mother said ‘No’, you must play football. “I also loved boxing – my hero was Mike Tyson – and I was good at breakdancing too. I performed in shows and my brother now does it professionally. But my mum saw my talent was in football and it has worked out well for me. If I score a winner against PSG, then maybe I will do a breakdance on the pitch!”