For Celtic, Tuesday night was the night even the English took us seriously again.

One of the most pleasing aspects of watching the game on Tuesday night was the growing respect from the commentary team. They started the match in a mode that I thought was pretty dismissive, but as the game went on, they began to develop an appreciation for our performance and, eventually, for the team itself.

They realised something they hadn’t expected—that there are teams outside the Premier League on this island that are actually pretty good.

We may not have won the game, but we took away a moral victory. We won the respect of people who don’t usually like to give it to anyone outside their own bubble. And to me, that was really satisfying. Hearing people like Alan Shearer completely change their tune over the course of the match was something nice.

I generally don’t care what commentators south of the border think of our club, our league, or anything like that. But the way they were talking about us after the game—compared to how they spoke before it—yeah, I took a lot of pleasure in that.

The main reason for that is simple: if we have turned around English broadcast journalists, with all their arrogance and ego about their own league and teams, then others across Europe must have been even more impressed. Those who don’t see the world through an EPL-centric lens will judge clubs on merit, on achievements, on how they present themselves and how they show up for business.

Result notwithstanding, that performance has made us credible. Clubs across Europe will now take us seriously on the pitch. It’s already well known that we are a model for how successful clubs should operate off the field—everyone knows that. But now it looks like we’re gaining respect on it as well. Our credibility has been restored.

Why is that important? For several reasons, not least of which is player recruitment. If we’re credible in Europe, we have a cachet that might otherwise elude us, and that could be crucial in the years ahead. No longer just a big fish in a small pond, we’re proving that we can punch at a higher level.

It’s been a long road to get here, of course. We’ve lost a lot of these games quite heavily along the way. There must have been times when players—especially new signings—came out of those matches wondering, “What the hell have I done here?” It’s all well and good winning against teams in the SPFL, but these guys want to prove themselves against the best. And for those who joined expecting us to compete at that level, suffering absolute hidings must have been demoralising.

There’s a psychological element to this too, with both upsides and downsides. The upside is that teams will have more respect for us. They won’t see Celtic in the draw and think it’s an easy tie anymore. They’ll approach us with wariness. The downside? That same respect might mean they play with more caution, making it harder for us to exploit them. But that’s a minor concern.

Teams treating us with more respect means they’re less likely to attack us from the first whistle. They’ll be more cautious in their approach. That’s a net positive if you ask me, and it’s something Brendan Rodgers can definitely use to our advantage.

It feels like a game-changing moment for us.

A game-changing performance.

One that now has us being taken seriously and talked about seriously.

Because while we, as fans, can convince ourselves things are better than they are at times, hearing it from people who started as sceptics and were turned around—that’s when you know it’s real. That’s when you know this progress, this development, this evolution, is actually happening.

Everyone who watched it is saying the same thing.

That’s how you know we’re dealing with reality. Not that I was worried we were seeing things that weren’t there—Celtic fans don’t kid themselves about their team the way some others do.

But getting that affirmation from such an unexpected source?

Yeah, that was very nice indeed.

Photo by Ulrik Pedersen/NurPhoto via Getty Images

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