If Celts front up they lift the Cup HOLT COLUMN
Fairytale Scottish Cup Finals are few and far between when Celtic are starring at Hampden.
Today may be a bit different but, with apologies to Hearts fans, we’re about to see The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and it won’t make for a happy ending in a few hours’ time.
Let’s not sugarcoat it, if Celtic turn up then there’s only going to be one winner.
It will be a victory for Neil Lennon and a quadruple Treble celebration to boot.
The biggest problem for the Jambos is that this game is not the one-off occasion these Cup finals are generally billed as.
You hear phrases such as ‘puncher’s chance’ and it’s true that anything can happen on the day.
But when I heard Lennon’s pre-match quotes I thought he was bang on the money.
He spoke about the strangeness of having this final played in December and not May but the fact his side have a routine for finals in winter such as the League Cup was telling.
That routine will play a massive part in them adding another trophy to their astonishing tally.
This isn’t a final between two teams who haven’t been on this stage for a while.
Celtic have been to Hampden so often in the last four or five seasons that they must hit the autopilot switch on the team bus to Mount Florida.
The management and the squad all know what’s required.
They have a tried-and-tested process and that’s why they’ll play the role of sorcerer to Hearts, who are very much the apprentice for this one.
The Jambos are coming up against serial winners of trophies and that sort of experience is simply priceless.
In many respects, it’s just another game to Celtic, that’s the measure of how successful they have been over a period of absolute domestic dominance.
As always in these Covid-19 times, it’s the fans you feel for in finals such this one.
Not being part of it is really hard to bear.
Hearts fans would have loved the trip to Glasgow because finals for them are not a seasonal occurrence
Don’t get me wrong, they’ve had their fair share of them but Hampden’s a second home for Celtic these days.
It’s ingrained in this squad how to tackle these games. When I reached the Scottish Cup Final with Kilmarnock in 1997 I loved the week leading up to the game because you were treated like football royalty.
There was the press day and then all the preparation and build-up but this final has not had those things.
We are all missing something as a result of that.
Hearts won’t have had that feeling of being the centre of attention in the way they should have.
But for Celtic this final is just the norm for them as it has been season after season.
They’ll have nerves but not that big day trepidation which has a habit of crippling the minds of some players.
What if I do this or that and make a mistake? Those selfdoubts can be the difference.
I also hear about this crisis Celtic are going through. I watched them against Kilmarnock last Sunday and didn’t see a side in crisis. They could won by five or six.
What has been letting them down is that they haven’t been scoring the amount of goals they did previously.
If they click in the forward areas today then they win the game. It’s that simple.
Celtic have been to Hampden so often they must hit the autopilot switch on team bus