LIGHT FEVER
Celtic stars are shining so bright as they steal the show against the Germans
THE easy option was to take a breath and pick out a man. Callum McGregor didn’t take the easy option. The easy option was to head for the corner and get his team a set-piece. James Forrest didn’t take it. The easy option was to stick the head down and lash the ball across the face of goal. Kieran Tierney thought otherwise. Celtic fans sacrificed the late swift half to get in early and be dazzled by the Parkhead light show. But it was around a quarter of an hour later they needed to stick the sunglasses on when three home grown talents shone brighter than any of the fancy new bulbs dotted around the ground. The pre-match show was pretty neat but it was what the Scotland trio did when Celtic opened the scoring against RB Leipzig last night that produced a beaming smile in gaffer Brendan Rodgers, along with the rest of the Parkhead crowd.
The fact it was three kids who came through the system shouldn’t be underplayed, particularly considering the opposition.
Leipzig might be representing Germany but they pitched up without a single star turn born back in old Deutschland.
Ralf Rangnick knows a player when he sees one and the Leipzig gaffer called it last month.
He picked out Tierney and McGregor as ones to keep tabs on. He even joked he probably couldn’t afford them, given Peter Lawwell’s rigorous reputation for driving a hard bargain.
He should have chucked Forrest on to the list, as all three sent their stock soaring on a rip-roaring European night at Celtic Park.
The eyes were watering at the pre-match illuminations but it was the eardrums that took the real battering. The nerves took a shredding as well by the end.
Celtic had to hang on for grim life at times against a Leipzig side determined to leave the Scottish champs in the dark. The Parkhead
men simply wouldn’t have it. But what a shift it took.
Leipzig were missing a few star men but still brought a side packed with talent. Guys such as Bruma and Cunha, who sounded like some kind of exotic jewellers from Victorian times, are diamonds at this level.
They cost a few bob as well but Red Bull are not messing around and any suggestion Leipzig were not too fussed about the Europa League went right out of the window in seconds.
They were slick and quick but those are givens when you get to this level. What you don’t always expect is the press. It was scary. This lot pressed harder than a CNN White House correspondent.
Before Celtic’s stunning opener there was so much pressing from Leipzig it felt like they’d reopened the old Parkhead steamie.
The only way to cope with constant haranguing is to have confidence on the ball in tight areas.
For some players it’s a given. Tom Rogic could be man-marked inside Harry Houdini’s broom cupboard and he’d still be showing. Scott Sinclair is the same. It’s not something we see too often with Scottish players. Our lads get a man-on shout on these shores even when their nearest neighbour isn’t even sharing the same postcode.
But that’s what makes these Celtic Scots different.
Scott Brown’s the same when he’s involved but McGregor didn’t need to stick down a few rolled-up pages of the Daily Record to fill the skipper’s big boots.
The 24-year-old has stepped in and stepped up. His quick feet and bursts in to the box make him a natural further up the pitch.
But slotting back into Brown territory has been a revelation. McGregor looks made for the role.
The boundless energy means he can cover and track going back.
But the speediness of movement on the ball allows him to quickly build and turn defence in to attack, shifting the entire side up the pitch and through the gears.
Tierney was just Tierney. Just like he always is.
The big clubs in England have stopped sending scouts to check him out as there’s no need to waste the petrol to find out what they already know.
It said it all he was up against a £20million winger but it was Bruma who was doing a hatchetman job on the Celtic star by the second half.
On the other side Forrest is strangely overlooked at times, even by the Hoops support.
There can surely never be a player with so many medals yet still without a song from the stands.
It was skill that got Celtic into position. It was going to take guts to hang on to it.
But there was Tierney, battered, bruised and breathing out of his backside, sliding into tackles like his life depended on it.
There was McGregor, fearlessly blocking a fierce drive that made the entire stadium wince.
They gasped again when Leipzig finally got through the green and white wall. But just as they did at the first, Celtic sliced RB open again soon after.
For McGregor to Forrest to Tierney, read Sinclair to Christie to Odsonne Edouard.
Eruption. This was the big Euro night Parkhead has been craving this season.
The lights show was terrific but Celtic Park is still all about the noise.