It’s been a dozen years since Celtic defied expectation and won a Champions League game of this magnitude. ‘Watt’s the story, Celtic’s glory’ and all of that.
That win against Barcelona in Glasgow, secured by a young Tony Watt, was a footballing miracle built on four attempts on goal to Barca’s 18 and on 16% possession to Barca’s 86%, but there’s been nothing like it in the years since.
Celtic’s relevance in Europe for a decade and more has been around the atmosphere in their stadium rather than the quality of their team. Visiting players have showered their fans with praise for creating world class atmospheres, which was nice, but almost galling at the same time.
Celtic shouldn’t really want to hear what a lovely time the great and the good of European football had while playing in Glasgow – or anywhere else. When they start saying what a misery it is to play against Celtic then a corner will have been turned.
Maybe that’s Tuesday evening. Seeing is believing, of course. The loss of Cameron Carter-Vickers puts the brakes on the optimism to a fair extent, given that the centre-back is the one who ties it all together at the back.
There’s also the task of Celtic having to go up a couple of levels from what they’re used to and then staying at that level for an entire evening when Karim Adeyemi, the flying machine winger, and Serhou Guirassy, the excellent finisher, are beginning to motor.
This is Rodgers’ 20th full Champions League game as Celtic manager. There’s no marquee victory on his record, no win that reverberated around European football.
This would be it. Against Dortmund, we’ll find out more about Rodgers’ side – flat-track bullies or something more significant?
