TIME WAITS FOR NO KAZAKHSTAN
Lustig: Celtic have to ignore the clock and play their own game
The Swede made the seven-hour trip through five time zones to European football’s furthest outpost twice in the space of three weeks in 2013, once with Celtic to face Shakhter Karagandy and then with his national side.
He insists the best way to deal with the shock to the system that any athlete faces crossing continents is to ignore the fact you have even done it when you’re in and out in 72 hours.
Which means Celtic will be treating the 8pm kick-off in Astana the same as they would any 3pm kick off at home – and eating and sleeping accordingly.
He also believes the opposite will be true for their opponents and that the trip to Glasgow will mess with their heads and bodies.
The 29-year- old defender said: “The time dif ference is something you have to think about and we’ll try to do everything to cope. You are better staying in your own time zone instead of trying to change.
“That’s what we did with the Swedish national team. You just stay up to 4am or 5am and have dinner in the middle of the night.
“That’s the best way to do it. Teams like Germany have done that too and it works.
“It’s strange to be eating at that time but you don’t feel like you need to sleep, so it’s better that way.
“But I think it will be harder for them to come over here. The kick-of time will effectively be at 1am for them and hopefully that gives us an advantage.
“The flight isn’t ideal as you never want to sit on a plane for six hours. But we will go over on Monday and that’s good. It gives us a couple of days to get used to it.”
The tactic had mixed results – Sweden managed to see of Kazakhstan 1-0 thanks to a Zlatan Ibrahimovic goal – but the Hoops suffered at the hands of Karagandy, their 2-0 defeat over there only overturned by a James Forrest injury-time clincher in a 3- 0 win at Celtic Park in the return the last time they made the group stages.
Lustig said: “It will be a far tougher game in Astana than the one we had against Lincoln Red Imps. We have been there before when we lost to Karagandy.
“We know how difficult it will be but hopefully we can get a better first-leg result. When you play away from home, you need to take your opportunities.
“I remember we had a really good chance in the last five minutes over there and hit the bar. They scored from a long throw-in and that made it difficult.
“The artificial pitch makes it difficult and we have struggled on that surface before. But hopefully we have learned from that and will know how to get a good result on that hard surface.
“These games never get easier. Look at Qarabag last season. We felt we should beat them, on paper. But we had to get a last-minute goal at Celtic Park then grind it out over there.
“Sometimes you need to do that, especially when it’s so early in the season.
“Maybe we don’t have all the players in the right positions yet so it’s hard.
“But we have experience and hopefully we can grind out results.”
Astana have recent experience of their own at home in Europe though and it’s impressive.
They won all three games at home in the qualifiers last season against Maribor, HJK Helsinki and Apoel Nicosia then, in a powerhouse group with eventual finalists Atletico Madrid, Benfica and Galatasaray, they never lost, drawing all three matches.
So Lustig is well aware Celtic will need to make big strides from their last trip to Gibraltar, a defeat he admitted – even if his manager didn’t – was an embarrassment.
But he made up for it as he burst the dam with the opener on Wednesday, despite playing within the constraints of a back three. He said: “The game over there was quite special and quite embarrassing for us but we played well from the first minute in the return leg.
“Forrest and Patrick Roberts down the sides did really well and we controlled the game straight away. We created chances and, after scoring the first goal, didn’t look back.
“The back three was fine. We played the system a few times under Neil Lennon but we haven’t done it often in the last few years. It was okay though. It’s a bit
difficult when you are changing formations and players – but it worked.
“I can’t get forward as much as normal in that system but still managed to get my goal. Against a team like Lincoln you can still get forward and that’s what happened.
“I am happy to play central-defence if the manager needs me. I’ve done it before and it’s no problem, especially with some defenders injured.” Lustig also saw enough in the team’s young talent to take heart for the season ahead. He said: ”Moussa Dembele is a big talent and has big expectations on him but he will do really well. “And Patrick is unbelievable on the ball. You saw that against Lincoln. His goal was unbelievable!”