REWRITING THE HISTORY BOOK

Rodgers vows to qualify his way as Celtic strive to end three years of hurt

BRENDAN Rodgers exudes an air of calm not always found in Celtic managers before a Champions League qualifier. Over dinner with Neil Lennon last week, the two Northern Irishmen exchanged notes on the complexities of life in the Parkhead technical area. Some are small, others sizeable. The most stressful month is August, when the crushing, grinding pressure to reach the group stage of the Champions League reaches its peak.

It was too much for Ronny Deila. The thought of a third, successive failure prompted the Norwegian’s resignation at the tail end of last season.

Even Lennon, a grizzled veteran of some epic European nights, found the pressure crushing. Before Champions League games, sleep becomes restless and elusive.

‘I had a meal with Neil the other week,’ Rodgers revealed yesterday as he prepared for tonight’s play-off first leg with Hapoel Be’er Sheva.

‘I think he enjoyed the Champions League qualifiers. I know Lenny well and we are different characters with different personalities.

‘I’m sure he didn’t sleep too well the night before these games. And, of course, these are huge games.

‘You can sense it when you drive up to the stadium. When that music comes on and the flag is fluttering in the middle of the pitch on Wednesday night, everyone will sense the size of the occasion.

‘But you have to stay calm. You try to prepare your team the best you possibly can. The work has gone in with the players and the staff to make sure we arrive at a good moment. It has been very thorough and we can do no more than that.

‘If you get a bit of luck along the way, then you hope you can qualify. The players are ready. I’m calm and confident we have done the work.

‘I will sleep fine and we will be ready for the game.’

For Celtic, last season’s defeat to Malmo was traumatic; the beginning of the end for Deila.

After losing to Legia Warsaw and Maribor the previous year, the stench of failure began to hang over a manager who bore the haunted look of a dead man walking.

Rodgers has already experienced the fall-out to a Champions League defeat after the one-off loss to Gibraltar minnows Lincoln Red Imps. He already knows how it goes. But while people speak of defining games for Celtic’s season, he strives for perspective.

‘I am one who never gets carried away when we lose or win a game,’ he said. ‘I am never too disappointed when we lose. It all changes quickly.

‘You saw that early on in pre-season when we had the worst result in the history of football ever by a Scottish team in the land. Then we progress and start to do OK.

‘It’s football. We want to do well. Yeah, I love football, it’s my life, we spend many hours at the training ground analysing, you get home at night and analyse a game, think about the game, and of course this match is clearly on our minds.

‘We want to give the players every chance possible — but if it doesn’t happen in the end, then we haven’t been good enough.’

The hope is that they will be. Scott Sinclair and Kolo Toure have been added to the team. Erik Sviatchenko will also provide greater insurance in central defence after returning to fitness.

Under Rodgers, Celtic play with more tempo and pace. The tactics are more flexible and tend to make a difference late in games. The same could never be said of Deila. The players are largely the same, but Celtic are now a different proposition to the failures of the last two years.

‘The message I’ve looked to send to the players is that we don’t really want to go back into that,’ said the manager.

‘They will have learned lessons from it, but this is a new team with a new idea and one which is progressing very well.

‘It will be tough, the last qualifying stage, but it is important to stay calm.

‘We want passion, intensity and pressure — but you have to stay calm in order to make the process work.

‘You have to get rid of negativity, because modernday football moves on so quickly. Over the course of the two games, there are going to be high-pressure situations. You need to have various checkpoints along the way to help them deal with that. ‘Our focus is on ourselves, to play the game we want to play, to have the intensity in the game we want. ‘If we can keep a clean sheet and get a win, then it gives us a great stepping stone going into the second leg. ‘But whatever has happened in the past is irrelevant, really. ‘This is a different team with a different mentality and a different manager. ‘That’s how we have been approaching it.’ The dinner with Lennon (left) was a chance to catch up with an old pal. Rodgers has his own way of doing things and has kept contact with previous managers to a minimum. He has a keen appreciation of Celtic’s past, but plans to write his own history his own way.

‘I only spoke to Lenny about it because we were having a meal together,’ he insisted. ‘We talked about a lot of things other than football.

‘It’s not something I particularly need, to know everyone else’s Champions League story here.

‘Everyone writes their own story and the story we have so far is a positive one.

‘The players have been brilliant in their work and I’m happy with how it has gone.

‘The experience is different for everyone. For me, it’s just game by game and stage by stage. This is the final hurdle and we want to make it.’

The benefits of qualification are obvious.

The credibility and reputation of a Celtic manager is staked on the Champions League.

Supporters have already bought into Rodgers in large numbers. Qualification over two legs against a Be’er Sheva team yet to lose an away goal in two qualifying rounds would not only secure the trust of supporters, it might also convinced English Premier League players Scottish football is a respectable place to be.

‘It certainly makes it more attractive,’ conceded Rodgers. ‘There is no doubt about that. But not just for Celtic.

‘I think that’s the case for every club in Europe.

‘The feeling this morning is that we are very relaxed and focused and calm about the situation.

‘We have to be patient, we want to be aggressive and counter pressing will be important.

‘And, obviously, when you have chances at this level, you have to take them.’