I’ll only enjoy Bernabéu if we play well
Facing Real is awesome... but Postecoglou insists Celtic won’t be awestruck
APURIST but avowedly no soccer tourist, Ange Postecoglou has never visited the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. Accordingly, his opinion of one of sport’s most hallowed cathedrals will take no account of architecture or history, merely on how Celtic fare during their visit to play Real Madrid in November.
‘Anyone can do a tour of the Bernabéu,’ he quips. ‘I have been pretty lucky, I’ve been to the Maracana, I’ve been to Wembley, all these places.
‘The ones I remember fondly are the ones we did well in. That’s the key to it.’
The Australian is as energised as anyone at the prospect of facing the reigning European champions. Of locking horns with Carlo Ancelotti and devising a gameplan that might somehow eclipse the attacking threat of Ballon d’Or favourite Karim Benzema. It’s what he got into the game for.
Yet, he also acknowledges the fact that Celtic only reached the plains of the Champions League group stage by taking care of the domestic stuff.
Today’s trip to Tannadice, the scene of last season’s title triumph, offers a timely reminder of that.
In midweek there’s a trip to Dingwall to commence the club’s defence of the League Cup, the trophy success that was so pivotal in convincing a new team that they were capable of claiming the league title at the first attempt. And nothing need be added about the importance of next weekend’s first Old Firm clash of the season against Rangers, themselves freshly qualified for UEFA’s top competition after a midweek win in Eindhoven.
So that’s three very different hurdles that must be navigated before Celtic open their Group F campaign at home to the Spanish giants on Tuesday, September 6.
If there’s a warning of how quickly fortunes can change in football, it resides in the shape of the man in the opposite dug-out today.
Just a few weeks ago Jack Ross was riding high on the back of a fine 1-0 Euro victory over AZ Alkmaar.
It all spectacularly collapsed in the Netherlands as AZ romped to a 7-1 second-leg win.
‘I don’t think Jack needs sympathy,’ says Postecoglou. ‘I don’t need sympathy if I am going through a tough time, it’s more a respect for every manager and the challenges they face. It’s the nature of the game. A few weeks ago when United beat AZ the mood was a lot different for Jack and his team and he knows that. It can change back just as quickly and that’s the danger for us — if they have a strong performance against us everything changes, so we just have to make sure we are ready for a strong performance.’
Just as he has for each of Celtic’s four Premiership league games thus far, Postecoglou is likely to stick closely to his strongest side.
Yet, at some point he is going to start making use of the deeper pool of players he has assembled this summer.
Benjamin Siegrist, Alexandro Bernabei and Aaron Mooy are yet to start a match for their new club. Carl Starfelt, Tony Ralston, Liel Abada and Giorgos Giakoumakis were all important players last term but have also been absent from the starting XI in the early exchanges of the new campaign.
It’s been easy to maintain continuity weekend to weekend but the first midweek match in the Highlands would seem an obvious place for some changes.
‘We have been working hard through this period to make sure we have a squad of players who are ready to go for the games coming up,’ says Postecoglou. ‘We’ve had a couple of bounce games to try and get those who have not had a lot of game time up to the levels where they are ready to go.
‘I can’t guarantee anyone games because they have or haven’t been playing but certainly we will need a squad and won’t be going into these games with the same 11 all the time.’
Siegrist, a key member of the United team that finished fourth and qualified for Europe under Tam Courts, has made no secret of his desire to mount a proper challenge to Joe Hart for the keeper’s jersey following his summer transfer.
Given the Swiss’s ambition, might it make sense for Postecoglou to nominate the 30-year-old as Celtic’s cup keeper for the season?
Postecoglou considers the question but seems disinclined to operate along such defined lines.
‘Then you kind of limit yourself a little bit,’ he says. ‘Goalkeepers want to be competing to play every game.
‘Joe’s done really well and is our No1 goalkeeper but Benji’s been outstanding in training and Scotty Bain has been working hard too.’
The trip to the Highlands is awkwardly placed on the night before the transfer window shuts — but having done most of his business early, Postecoglou is relaxed about how the market might affect his squad shape this week.
And he is comfortable in the make-up of his key players ahead of Saturday’s first derby match of the season.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s Rangers may have been pipped to last season’s title, but they too have claimed a place in the Champions League group stage courtesy of qualifying-round wins over Union St-Gilloise and PSV Eindhoven.
The sales of Joe Aribo and Calvin Bassey have prompted a significant turnover in players at Ibrox, but Postecoglou knows from experience that a team can win — and win often — during a rebuild.
He continued: ‘They have had a turnover of players which they haven’t had in the last three pre-seasons when they were building a team.
‘We have to make sure leading into that game we are in good form. When we play at our best, we are hard to stop, irrespective of who we are playing against.’
The litmus test of that viewpoint will arrive the following midweek and in the five subsequent games against Real, RB Leipzig and Shakhtar Donetsk.
Real, a club Celtic have not faced in 42 years, are the top draw and, as reigning champions, the most fiendishly difficult — and, in Ancelotti, Los Blancos are led by one of the game’s greatest football managers.
‘I haven’t come across Ancelotti but he’ll go down as one of the greatest managers of all time and he’s not finished yet,’ says Postecoglou.
‘The people I know who have come across him say he’s a gentleman and in my experience the ones who tend to be successful tend to be decent people as well.’