RODGERS: BHOYS ARE READY FOR A BREAK

Rodgers is savouring time to reflect before relishing challenge of tackling the very best

THE advent of the first international break is not always to everyone’s pleasing. Just as the domestic season is starting to fire into life, Scotland’s trip to Malta in early September could, in one respect, be considered a rude interruption.

Brendan Rodgers might just beg to differ, however. By the time his side’s game with Aberdeen concludes this evening, Celtic will have clocked up no less than 18 matches in 59 days throughout six countries. By his own admission, Tuesday’s episode in southern Israel was more taxing than any he’d experienced before.

For the manager of Celtic, moments of quiet satisfaction and reflection are rare indeed. But after the successful completion of Stage One of his Parkhead project, surely no one would begrudge Rodgers the right to finally exhale.

‘I’m really looking forward to the final whistle tomorrow,’ he admitted. ‘It has been an incredible, unique start to the season for me and for the team.

‘But we have set a lot of things in place over the course of these last few months. We have achieved our main aim in this first part of the season, which was to qualify for the Champions League.

‘It’s something that we will reflect on over the course of the international break because I think it’s very important that the players can celebrate a milestone. Because it clearly is a milestone.

‘You have to because, if you’re always running the race, you never get the feeling of going over the finish line.’

The need to decompress is blindingly obvious. When hostilities resume two weeks today, Rangers will be darkening the door of Celtic Park on league duty for the first time in four years.

Then, three days later, the Northern Irishman’s side will be facing up to the small matter of Barcelona in the Nou Camp.

‘It’s not (golfing at) Loch Lomond, is it?’ Rodgers smiled.

‘But that is the great life. That is the life we are in and these are the challenges we want.

‘After the international break the focus is on Rangers, a great game to come into.

‘Barcelona is why you qualify, why you want to be in the competition because between now and Christmas there are these games, all at a great level. So we look forward to them.’

Emerging from a section containing Barcelona, Manchester City and Borussia Monchengladbach is a task akin to climbing Everest while blindfolded.

Yet after the thin gruel of the Europa League in the past two seasons, this is surely food for the footballing soul.

Packed with more glamour than Paris Fashion Week and imbued with more sub-plots than a cheap thriller, it’s pretty much everything Rodgers could have wished for at the helm of Celtic.

‘They’re terrific games aren’t they?’ he offered. ‘That’s why we were working hard to qualify.

‘Hopefully, the supporters and people with an interest in Celtic are excited to be part of it.

‘You are at the top table of European football. You have got great teams and players there and Celtic’s standing within that is very high.’

Night one reunites Rodgers with an old friend in the shape of Luis Suarez.

The Uruguay striker broke his heart by defecting from Liverpool to Barcelona in 2014.

An unlikely point or three to start with might just mend it.

‘He’s a top player and a great man,’ Rodgers went on.

‘It is always nice to see him. I also know how super-competitive he is. He will want to be working well and scoring goals.’ A sixth trip to the Catalan citadel in 12 years was not every Celtic fans’ top choice. Rodgers, for his part, could never tire of the prospect. ‘It never does (tire),’ he stated.

‘And that pitch never gets smaller. They’re great. ‘That’s why you work so hard. It’s the elite cup competition in the world and Celtic are in it. ‘We are only too happy to get these experiences.’ What Man City don’t boast in terms of a storied history in the tournament, they make up for in their vast wealth, most recently exemplified by the acquisition of Pep Guardiola as manager.

Given their hitherto lack of success in the competition, reaching the semi-final — as they did last season only to lose to eventual winners Real Madrid — might once have been viewed as acceptable by their Abu Dhabi owners. Not now.

‘You see the investment in Manchester City and you have to be realistic,’ cautioned Rodgers.

‘Their investment in terms of what they are building makes them one of the superpowers of world football now.

‘That’s the challenge for us: to try and find answers to all the undoubted problems they will give you and then make sure that you can give the opponent problems as well. I am looking forward to that.’

Purely by dint of the pre-eminent sides in the section, there’s a danger of Monchengladbach almost being overlooked.

Andre Schubert’s side finished fourth in the Bundesliga — some 33 points behind runaway winners Bayern Munich.

Yet their 9-2 demolition of Swiss side Young Boys in the qualifying play-off was a warning written in bold capital letters to anyone daring to underestimate them.

‘They’re a team that has been progressing very well in the last few seasons,’ said Rodgers.

‘German teams are always very, very good on the counter-attack. They’re very fast, they work hard and they have a number of good young players in there.

‘They were a big team a number of years ago that fell away, but have come back again strongly. They are definitely a force in German football and I’m sure they will show that over the course of the games.’

Celtic are wise to proceed with cautious optimism.

Every point gained in the competition is hard-earned. Harsh lessons lie around every corner.

But whether the tally after the last assignment at the Etihad on December 6 is good enough to sustain an interest in Europe after Christmas or not, Rodgers believes the experience will have been worthwhile.

‘I was talking to Danny McGrain about it the other day. He is a club legend,’ Rodgers recalled.

‘He has played a lot of games here in Scotland.

‘One of his first big learning experiences was when he played against a German team.

‘The first game was away from home and the winger made a movement that he had never seen before and he got away from him.

‘So, that made him think as a footballer. When he came back and thought about how he could deal with it, it made him a better player. So when you play against different styles, different cultures, different types of players, they will present to you different problems that you’ve got to find a solution to.

‘Whether you come off second best or not, you will always learn from it.

‘That makes you better and that’s what it’s about.’

Even a man of Rodgers’ vast experience will approach the coming months as both a teacher and a pupil.

If a harsh lesson or two is meted out along the way, then so be it. For now, or more accurately come 4.45pm this evening, he’s where he always wanted to be.

‘Football’s football,’ he added. ‘You either walk on water or you’re the devil, so I never get too carried away or too disappointed.

‘We achieved what we wanted to achieve.’