Celtic ignores the white-noise elsewhere to focus on the next masterpiece.

As everyone at the club across the city and their media acolytes indulge in mad fantasy—some of it so embarrassing it deserves an article of its own—Celtic, our coaches, and our players are busy working hard. They are focussed on things that are real, valid, and where the intentions and objectives are clear.

In short, we’re getting on with the business of winning a treble.

I just find it amazing that Scottish football now seems to exist in two separate universes. One is the reality-based world, where most clubs operate. The other is the Ibrox world, a realm of utter fantasy, illusion, deception, lies, and God knows what else.

My last piece on the 2012 scandal, its aftermath, and its implications is due up later today. It focuses on the Ibrox fans, and you couldn’t ask for a clearer example of how deranged they are than the events of the last few days.

In the meantime, our club is focused on business.

We have a big game tomorrow at Easter Road—another three points to put on the board, another step closer to the title we so crave.

Compared to the madness over there, we must seem like a boring club. Everything is mundane, routine, and normal.

But that’s exactly where our strength lies. That’s the advantage—being normal, being so good at winning that, as I said on last week’s podcast, it’s just another Saturday. You show up. You do your job. You move on to the next one. And when you consider how tough it is to win week after week, season after season, sustaining that success over multiple campaigns, it’s incredible.

But routine makes the incredible seem normal.

And although chasing a treble is sexy, alluring, and brilliant to consider—we’ll celebrate it like it’s the first time we’ve ever done one—the actual steps to get there, day by day, week by week, game by game, don’t happen by chance. They happen because people are focused and determined, working hard every single day. Whether that’s the manager and the players, the coaches, or anyone else at the club.

I find it comforting that there’s so little grandstanding from Celtic.

So, few headlines are generated by us. Our support doesn’t get itself into a lather over every internet rumour or mad fantasy. We don’t dream about magic money trees or wonder whether some sugar daddy will come in and radically change our fortunes. We’re on top, and we didn’t get here by indulging in lunacy or delusion. We didn’t get here by living in an alternate reality.

We got here by producing excellence. How do you do that? You do it by routine. It’s that old joke about how you get to Carnegie Hall. “Practice.” It’s funny because it’s true.

We follow a routine that isn’t interrupted by the madness swirling elsewhere. A routine that stays the same no matter what’s happening in the game. We have made the pursuit of excellence almost boring.

And that’s what excellence is—it’s mundane. It’s in the little details.

Because excellence is only ever really present in the end result. The things we admire, the things that leave us in awe—whether in literature, film, art, music, or whatever—are in the moment when you see something complete, something finished. It’s easy to stand and admire the beauty and artistry of a masterpiece.

But if you were to watch Rembrandt paint, or Mozart compose, or Hemmingway write, you’d be bored to tears within five minutes. You’d probably say something dismissive like, “Give me a shout when you’re finished.”

Obviously, this is a little different.

Obviously, we’re all looking forward to tomorrow and the game itself. And for those 90 minutes, we’ll be completely engrossed. But we know it’s only a small part of the work being carried out.

The real work happens today—out on the training pitch, in the manager’s press briefings, in team talks, in game reviews, in tactical discussions. This is more like watching a great theatre production.

The beauty is in the performance, but getting there takes a writer, an editor, a director, sound and lighting technicians, casting agents, rehearsals, table readings, planning, and procedure. And none of that is sexy. None of that is glamorous. But the end result? That’s the masterpiece.

So I’m comforted knowing that while the other side is losing itself in wild speculation, we’re just getting on with the work. The kind of work that delivers excellence over and over again. That’s why I’m always glad that our club is a reasonably calm institution and not a soap opera with more plot twists than you can keep up with.

There are no such concerns at Celtic. And although Rodgers has done a bit of deflection today—which I’ll write about tomorrow—right now, it’s a minor issue. There are things of immediate concern, and there are things that can wait. His contract situation is not of immediate concern.

No, everyone at Celtic is focused only on immediate business. And the business at hand is another three points, another few goals, another step towards the title, and the treble after that. At times, it’s not sexy. But then, it’s not supposed to be. This is the hard work. This is what the excellence springs from. It’s what makes the masterpiece.

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