Lustig full of belief Celtic can compete with the elite

TRY as it might, European football’s private members c l ub — aka t he latter stages of the Champions League — is still prone to letting the odd interloper slip through the door.

A decade ago came unfancied Porto. PSV Eindhoven then reached the semi-finals. Two years ago, Cypriot side APOEL had the temerity to make it to the last eight.

And while last year’s finalists, Atletico Madrid, with a wage bill of £54million, would rarely be associated with abject poverty, Diego Simeone’s men still upset huge odds and the natural order of things to go as far as they did.

While still largely the preserve of the powerful elite, the business end of the continent’s most prestigious club tournament serves up no shortage of inspiring tales for those who dare to dream.

Certainly, as Celtic plot a hopeful path to a third successive appearance in the group stages, there is no ceiling on ambition.

For defender Mikael Lustig, the realisation that money doesn’t so much as talk but scream at the top end of the game is inescapable.

Yet, at the same time, the Swede cites the example of the reigning Spanish champions to illustrate his theory that unstinting self-belief can go an awful long way to bridging the money gap and perhaps allow sides like his own to go further than the cynics anticipate.

‘Atletico showed the smaller clubs what they can do,’ he said. ‘They probably have more money than us, but not much compared to teams l i ke Chelsea. They are not the biggest club but they won the Spanish League and got to the Champions League final.

‘They might not do it every year, but the gap is coming down so we will still see other teams doing well in the Champions League.

‘The first thing is to reach the group stages. When we reached the last 16, that showed you how good things can be.

‘You don’t need massive amounts of money to reach that goal. With a little more luck and skill, we could have done a lot better than we did last season.

‘You have to be focused for 90 minutes at that level and score when you have opportunities. We didn’t do that. For the moment, we have to f ocus on making the group stage.’

Back at Lennoxtown yesterday for the first day of pre- season training under new manager Ronny Deila, Lustig (right) could have been forgiven for wishing he was anywhere else.

Yet the former Rosenborg man’s contentment with life at Celtic was evidenced by his willingness to commit his future to the club until 2017 at the end of last season.

Lustig clearly knows his own mind. Within the last year, he’s seen Gary Hooper, Victor Wanyama and Joe Ledley head south for smaller clubs in a bigger environment. But his considered view is that virtually everything after Celtic would be a backwards step.

‘I really enjoy playing for this club and my family likes it here, so it wasn’t a hard decision.

‘To be able to play in a really big club and win titles as well as playing in Europe every year (is satisfying).

‘It is really hard to go to a bigger club than Celtic for me. Of course, if you are one of the best players in the world, you can maybe pick and choose. However, I feel I would go to a smaller club if I was to make a change.

‘The Premier League is probably the biggest in the world and I cannot blame them for making that decision, but I look at the whole picture.

‘Norwich went down, but it was always a dream for Gary to play in the Premier League and he has done it now.

‘You can go to another club and feel you have made the right decision, but it is so hard to know what the right thing to do is in football. In my case, I feel I have done the right thing.

‘I am not going to lie. Money, of course, is important for me as well, but not that important.

‘Maybe if I was on my own, I would perhaps have a little more ice in my blood and wait a couple of months to see what happens but, from the first day we started talking about a contract extension, staying was the only thing I was thinking about.’

Provided Celtic can negotiate the three ties that stand between themselves and the group stages, Lustig’s decision will appear all the more sensible.

KR Reykjavik present a testing but hardly daunting first task. Provided Celtic can match the sharpness of a side already halfway through their campaign, their quality should prevail.

‘It’s quite a good draw,’ said Lustig. ‘The only (possible) team I knew well was Malmo — they are a really good team. They would have been harder than Reykjavik.

‘I played against an Icelandic team when I was at Rosenborg in the qualification for the Champions League. The home game was quite good for us but going to Iceland and playing on a surface that was not the best was hard. ‘ It’s going to be hard, as I know the Icelandic players’ mentality. They never give up and are really proud. ‘If we go there and just think we are going to win the game then it’s going to be tough. ‘ They are halfway through their season. We experienced that when we played Helsingborgs and Elfsborg and they were in the tempo already.

‘We managed to go t hrough so those experiences can help us. We’ve made it to the Champions League two years in a row. We know how to play and how to get results. That’s important.’