Last night, the Celtic boss was more focussed than we’ve ever seen him before.

There was a moment last night during the game that has been much commented on but not analysed in any real detail.

It was the moment when Vincent Kompany stepped out of his technical area to retrieve a loose ball and get it back onto the pitch quickly—only to slip and fall. That moment is being replayed endlessly on social media, and some in the media have chosen to focus on it for a laugh.

But as usual, most of them have missed the big picture.

The big picture was the man standing just behind Kompany in the clip. I refer, of course, to our own manager, Brendan Rodgers. Now, Rodgers is a guy with a sense of humour. Under normal circumstances, you’d expect him to laugh at that and perhaps even go over to commiserate with his fellow manager. But Rodgers didn’t move a muscle.

It was the look on his face that made me sit up and take notice last night. He didn’t react at all. Now, think about that. No matter what you were doing or what the circumstances were, if someone slipped and fell like that right in front of you, you’d react. You’d laugh. There would be some sign on your face that you’d seen it. But Rodgers was a blank slate—no reaction whatsoever.

Because his attention was entirely on the game.

Rodgers was so locked in, so focused on the match, that it didn’t even register as an event worthy of note. I’m not saying he didn’t see it—he clearly did, as it happened right in front of him. But it wasn’t his priority.

And that says everything about the man in our dugout.

He was ice-cold last night—analysing, investigating, planning, strategising. That level of focus and drive translated into the team and how they handled the game. That’s what made the performance so excellent. That’s why it was such an important 90 minutes in our season and in our evolution from one version of Celtic to another. It bodes well for the future in every sense.

That’s the most focused I’ve ever seen Rodgers on the touchline. And I’m not just talking about Celtic—I mean across the course of his entire career. It’s a sure sign that this is where he is most engaged. If we keep him sweet, keep him interested in this tournament and on this stage, he’ll be here far longer than just the next 12 months of his deal. He’ll sign an extension and never look back.

Rodgers knows we’ve come on in giant strides. He knows that something special is happening here, and he knows he can take us forward and make us even better.

There’s something that happens to people at a certain point in their lives—something that shifts their outlook away from things they once thought mattered and towards the things that truly do.

And what I’m saying is that Rodgers can see his own future from here.

Last night, he glimpsed a possible future—one that may hold more appeal for him than anything else he could be offered. He saw a world in which he takes Celtic closer to greatness than any manager since Stein. He may even have briefly glimpsed a world in which his own statue stands outside the ground.

Listening to him talk after the game, about how his focus now is on strengthening the squad so we can go further next season, that was a man who knows, finally, that he made the right decision in coming back. A man who wants to chase all his dreams and goals—even the ones that once seemed wildly unrealistic.

I think Rodgers is starting to believe that he can do it all here. That a last 16 or even a last eight in this tournament isn’t out of the question.

Of course, this all presupposes that there are people at the club with the same level of ambition and understanding of what this moment means. And that is always the worry. That’s a subject I’ll be returning to tomorrow—you can count on it.

But for now, find that clip and watch it again. Watch Kompany fall. Watch Rodgers not even blink. Because that man had his attention locked on only one thing—the game. That laser focus, that unshakable concentration—you saw the results of it out there on the pitch, and that’s something no-one should ignore.

Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images

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