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Celtic has to be prepared for Bayern to give ourselves any chance.

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Image for Celtic has to be prepared for Bayern to give ourselves any chance.

Celtic has been drawn against Bayern Munich in the next round of the Champions League, and as tough as that is, it’s a better draw than we might have gotten—because the alternative was Real Madrid. It’s massive. It’s difficult.

But at least we now know our fate.

We won’t know for a couple of weeks whether our fans will be allowed in Germany, but the likelihood is that we’re going to get banned. We’re on a suspended sentence, and I don’t see UEFA being lenient. That would make an uphill battle even tougher. But we are where we are. I covered this earlier today.

Bayern is a huge game. It’s a huge test. They are one of the elite clubs of Europe, the kind of team you would want to avoid. But the Aston Villa defeat made that impossible. It was always going to be them or Madrid, and neither was particularly appealing.

So we take what we can get. It’s good just to be here.

This team has improved massively since we were last in Germany. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. Everyone talks about maturity, and that’s the most obvious takeaway from this campaign—that we have matured as a team, and that the manager has a chance to build something special here.

So yes, it will be difficult. Incredibly difficult. But it isn’t quite Mission: Impossible, because this team now has the mentality to handle big occasions. We proved that in Birmingham in midweek. The Celtic side of a year ago, going 2-0 down that early in the game, would have folded. The fact that we didn’t shows how much we’ve grown.

Because we weren’t seeded, the first leg is at home. And really, we have to win that to stand any chance at all in the away fixture.

They have great players who will make it hard both home and away, but particularly away, where the odds are already stacked against us. That makes the home tie massive—the most important game of our entire campaign.

Another thing we won’t know until Monday is what kind of squad we’ll have for this game. Nobody is suggesting we go out and sign players who will suddenly make us favourites, but we have to be competitive.

We have to make an effort.

This club has tens of millions of pounds in the bank—more than at any time in its history—and if we’re penny-pinching right now with this massive game on the horizon, that’s shameful. The hope is that the board intends to use the time left in the window to get some proper signings in. If they do that, we can look forward to this game with much more confidence.

It’s exciting. This game is a real proving ground for us.

It also offers a glimpse of what we can expect next season. Because, of course, next season we won’t go straight into the Champions League. We’ll have to navigate a qualifier first, and that could either be a nightmare or something relatively straightforward. We’ll find out soon enough.

So what would it take in the home leg for us to feel confident going to Germany? A two-goal lead would be amazing. A three-goal lead even better—but let’s be realistic, we’re not going to win by three or four.

So, a two-goal cushion is probably the best we can hope for. Keeping a clean sheet would obviously help, but with away goals no longer a factor, it doesn’t matter as much as it once did. The second leg being away makes it harder, though. If you go into a home tie with a good away result behind you, you can spring a surprise. But if you’re going to Germany needing a miracle, you’re in trouble.

The crucial thing is that you want to be going into the away leg still in the fight. Ideally, you want to be in a position where a draw would be enough to take you through. So any kind of win at home is a dream result … if we can get it.

And so here we are, looking forward to our ninth and tenth Champions League games of the season. That’s quite incredible when you say it out loud. Our ninth and tenth Champions League games.

But that’s what this new format is all about—it gives teams more games and puts more money in the bank. It also creates a fixture pile-up the likes of which we’ve never seen before. That’s the price we pay.

All that money in the bank also raises expectations. That’s where the next three days come in. We’ll see what the ambition level of this club actually is. If they take this seriously, we give ourselves a chance. If they don’t, then we can surmise that simply being here is enough for them. That the board thinks the job is done.

I’ll tell you this—Brendan Rodgers doesn’t.

Photo by Ross Parker/SNS Group via Getty Images

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5 comments

  • Johnny Green says:

    I’m glad we are still involved at this stage, but realistically I don’t see us going any further. As long as we compete and acquit ourselves well, then I will be semi satisfied with that outcome. Meanwhile back at home I am confidently expecting another Treble from the Bhoys.

  • GourockTim says:

    We need Celtic park to be bouncing just to give ourselves a chance.
    Time for the board to reward Brendan and the team with some strengthening in the last few days of the window – albeit disgracefully latw – AND to reward the support by not fleecing us yet again with ridiculous pricing knowing we seldom get the chance to see a team of Bayern’s calibre too often in a knock out tie.
    I’m not hopeful on either front.

  • wotakuhn says:

    We’re simply not going to buy £300m worth of players of outstanding quality so we need to get real. The reality is as BR said today a lot is going on in the background and we’ll be trying to get some reasonable standard players. Glamour tie tho

  • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

    Let us just hope and pray that there isn’t one nutter in our support intended to take the lunatic ‘no pyro, no party’ to Parkhead…

    Need to be absolutely certain that no Sevco fan gets their hands on any tickets as they could try to infiltrate Celtic by actually acting as a Celtic supporter and get us banned from Europe…

    It’s what they are capable off – Then again so are an odd lunatic in our own support as well !

  • Brattbakk says:

    Can we beat Bayern? Yes, look at the team that beat an incredible Barcelona team, I know it’s two legs and it requires a near miracle but they are 11 human beings, we can do it.

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