This Celtic side has tasted defeat. They hate it. It will motivate them.

Last night, I was gratified to read Callum McGregor talking about the end of last season and the cup final defeat and how it has given him—and others in the squad—an additional jolt. A bit of fire. A renewed motivation to go out this season and do big things.

This Celtic side has never lacked for motivation. It has never needed a kick up the backside to stay focused. That’s been one of its great strengths—this relentless willingness to push and graft and chase every trophy, year in, year out. But there’s something different in the air now. The edge is a little sharper. The tone a little colder. The team is feeling aggrieved. And they want to settle a few debts.

That’s good news. In fact, it might be the best news of the summer so far.

Because one of the great dilemmas for any manager of a successful side is how to keep the hunger alive. Success, paradoxically, can be dangerous.

It makes teams soft around the edges. Winning becomes routine. The edge dulls. Players stop digging as deep because they’ve already got medals in the drawer and the glow of past triumphs in their memories. The more you win, the harder it becomes to convince players that they need to win again.

There are only two things that can reset that mentality.

You can break up the team, create internal competition and fresh hunger with new signings, and that’s part of what Brendan Rodgers is trying to do. It’s at the core of that old footballing superstition about how “the third year is the killer.” That’s about freshening up the squad so they don’t fall prey to that.

The other way to reset is that you can lose. Because losing reminds winners just how much they hate the feeling that accompanies any defeat. It spurs them on to make sure they avoid feeling like that again.

So McGregor and the rest of the players who’ve suffered that cup final pain are now using it to fuel them in the pre-season. That’s the reaction you want. A team so used to being winners will never accept losing lightly … and so I look forward to seeing how they respond out on the pitch.

There will be understandable anger in that dressing room. Suddenly there’s a debt to settle. And it’s not a debt to the fans, or to the board, or to the manager. It’s a debt these players owe to themselves. The feeling of losing any cup final is bad enough. But to see the chance at a treble go by the boards … that has to be especially hard to take. It’s hard enough for fans. But the must feel it all the more.

They know that they did more than just disappoint the supporters; they let themselves down in a big way. And now they’re coming back with all that pent up anger stored up.

That can be the difference between another good season and a great one.

Because the best teams—the really top teams—always carry a bit of spite with them. They remember. They stew over defeats like that. And when the time is right, they unleash all that frustration. The greatest sides in modern football all have a story like this in their DNA. A moment where things slipped, where something got away, where their rivals laughed—and they came back with vengeance in their veins.

Take Manchester United in 1992. They were nailed-on favourites to win the English league and then collapsed right at the end, handing the title to Leeds. That summer, Ferguson said it was one of the toughest of his career. But it lit a fire. The following year, they won the inaugural Premier League. It was the start of two decades of domination. Not because they breezed through—but because they remembered what it was like to fail, and how much they hated it.

Or look at Liverpool in 2018. Champions League finalists, but beaten by Real Madrid. Runners-up in the league with 97 points. For most clubs, that kind of season would leave a scar. For Klopp’s team, it was motivation. They hardened. They came back. The following year, they lifted the European Cup. The year after that, they finally won the league. That team was born in heartbreak and driven by the knowledge that nearly isn’t good enough.

Spain’s national side is another great example. The joke for decades was that they were world-class bottlers. Always talented, always hyped, always out in the quarters. In 2004 they went out early again, another tournament down the drain. But something changed. A generation came through who were sick of the old story. Within six years they were European champions, then world champions. Then European champions again. The scars were still there. They just used them for motivation.

What these teams all have in common is that they didn’t fold when they lost. They didn’t spiral. They sharpened.

So when McGregor says the squad is motivated, and that they’re thinking about what was said, how it ended, and how it felt, believe him. Don’t write it off as cliché. This is a player who has been at the heart of more trophy wins than most of his peers will ever taste. And if he’s talking about how he’s using this as fuel that tells you everything about the mood in the camp.

This isn’t a squad going through the motions. This is a squad that’s already thinking about trophies and statements and silencing critics. This is a team with a memory and a grudge. And there’s nothing more dangerous in football than that. Especially when they’re still better than the rest.

There’s a great old quote about how champions don’t just train harder after a loss—they remember longer. This Celtic team is carrying something into the new season that can’t be faked. And it didn’t come from a sports psychologist. It came from feeling, just for a moment, what it’s like to be doubted. What it’s like to feel the pressure of expectations and know that others are enjoying your discomfort.

They’ve tasted defeat. Rare, for this squad. And they hate it.

And if Celtic harness that properly—if Rodgers brings in the right additions, if the fans stay right behind them, if that hunger is channelled into the work, the fight, and the football—then last season’s pain won’t just be a memory. It’ll be the reason we go on and win everything all over again.