SANDMAN’S DEFINITIVE RATINGS: CELTIC @ THE RHINOLAND
“This is the day,
This is the day,
This is the day we hope’s not Groundhog day…
Eh…”– the travelling Celtic support.
THE FRIENDLY GHOST – 7/10 MOTM – Will I be busier than Falkirk? Was not the question on Kasper’s mind after ten minutes as yellow waves of attack sped his way continually. Yes, he was slow to react and unsighted at the rocket third but he kept it below ten with some formidable shot-stopping after being exposed more often than Paris Hilton’s snatch.
GREGGS THE BAKER – 1/10 – Incredible stat – Greggs doesn’t have any shops in Germany. How the hell do those poor people survive? So here he was, ambassador for delicious cuisine and also sparkly side-shedded bestubbled would-be assassin…Would-be suicidal, more like. A career-low in the Hoops for Greggs as he found himself pointing the wrong way most of the time, aiding Dortmund’s attack with some of the slackest play seen since the stage version of Loose Women cast Katie Price, Ulrika Jonsson and Kerry Katona in the lead roles.
WAYNE GRETZKY – 5/10 – A mhan with a game very well suited to German football – power and pace and perpetual gallop. “Who ees zees Elk?” the home fans quizzed as he thundered down the wing in eternal chase.’Moose, ya bams,’ AJ quipped back out the side of his mouth as his cultured hooves gave their all before collapsing in a heap late on. Difficult to overly castigate a bhoy who refused to hide while many went missing.
OF JUSTICE – 6.5/10 – Liam, get the CL heid on, it’s Ginger Baresi prerequisite at a venue where only the most acutely tuned defenders will survive. And let’s be fair here – Liam was alongside Kasper in the last line of resistance. Brilliant early interceptions really did give us hope that others failed to grasp. Only flaw was being knotted for their 6th but even then he was the one mhan standing against them waltzing in. Perversely, this was another fine CL appearance.
CRUSTY THE CLOWN – 3/10 – Never a splendid idea to play your main defender in a match of this level while he’s hampered by niggling injury. So in steps untried compatriot, ‘The man you can’t run into’. However, Dortmund didn’t get the St.Johnstone memo translated properly and read it as ‘The man you can run past at will’ . So it was for their second as Crusty hesitated to step up and intercept the through ball, lost his runner and ended up deflecting it in with a forlorn lunge. That was the beginning of his traumatic evening, herby censored; #*3#%#*## ***## mothe#£&**#$!!
CALMAC – 3.5/10 – If anyone could keep the heid in the fury of this occasion is was the skipper. His usual Celtic shtick is dictating play, tempo; a given. But a different proposition when you’re not the dominant side. This is when he’s most important to the team – on a psychological level keeping everyone focussed and in shape without the ball. But he was cursed from the off – cruel deflection played their striker right in for the opening pen. And I did wonder right then, given the weird, stupid, nature of that break, whether our CL away nightmares hadn’t really disappeared. So it proved for Calmac, unable to get on the ball and dictate, outnumbered, shut down and run around. But my opinion on his isolation is given later with BR…
SAINT BERNARDO – 2/10 – The meritocracy thrives as the Portuguese Pirlo deservedly keeps his place and gets a coveted CL start. Would he capitalise on his form and fortune? No. Battered, stifled and lost. Chased shadows all half then got lucky by getting subbed out of it.
THE TERMINATOR – 2.5/10 – “I’m back. I told you I would be…” The Ausburg Avenger donned the eye-mask and set out to prove he’s a genuine young hooped superhero. And the big lads from the Bundesliga slapped him about like he was Kick Ass. There’s a reason we got him for ten million and Dortmund didn’t splash twenty on him, like they did others – he’s talent, but emerging. And despite his class, he’s not THEIR class. Unable to insert himself into proceedings with any impact; like Paulo, left to scavenge and hound.
LORD KATSUMOTO – 5/10 – “Wat zee fook!? Deed anyvun see zat?”… ‘Vas zat zee Eminem? Can you hear zee rappeeng?’ Bemused exchanges among the home crowd as a bleached blur shot around the pitch spooking their players for the opening minutes, popping up for a roof-lifting equaliser; we had them where we wanted them, right there…For about thirty seconds. Okay, so even Daizen caught the away virus and gifted a goal but he was still Daizen, still at it. And, mysteriously, completely ignored as our best outlet all second half which tells you a lot about the mindset of the rest and the general hopelessness that had taken a grip.
KILLER MUSHROOM – 3.5/10 – Had a sore neck from kick-off, having to look up at Dortmund centre-half/man-giraffe Shuttlecock. Luckily the wee mhan was small enough to nip (calm down, racists) between the leviathan’s spindly legs and dart about a bit. Pointlessly. We never had the ball to give him. But ran his socks off anyway; or to half-mast at least.
TAKINTE – 2/10 – They do love a former Bayern player round Dortmund way… And in floats ours to terrorise them. Or not. Looked like his heid had gone when he had the chance to set up Kyogo; like many of his ancestors, shell-shock had set in and the elegant fleet-footed wizard of the opening months on the Celtic wing was a clumsy ineffectual waif, scrambling aimlessly.
SUBS –
HAKUNA HATATE – 5.5/10 – Very decent when thrown on at half-time to possibly the most thankless task since Captain Edward Smith of the Titanic handed wee Stuarty McClurkin the cabin boy an empty pint glass and said, “Get bailin’ kid.” Reo played some football and we looked like a football team for spells. Very brief spells.
YING – N/A – You might as well give the lad a go. Not like he was going to do any worse. And he didn’t.
DUNCAN IDAHO – N/A – Hauners required for an embattled frontline getting knocked about by those big German bully fellas. So in went Adam to see if they fancied picking on someone their own size. He tried, and… He encapsulated the entire evening’s luck with an incredible miss that wasn’t really an incredible miss when you see the spawny keeper’s fingertips fractionally divert the ball in the replay.
TONY THE TIGER – N/A – Tony hates Germany.
UNCANNY – 5/10 – Another pass-marker. File with Reo under ‘thanks for hew-haw boss’ as he took to the field under the blackest cloud we’ve known in many a CL stormy night. Yet he was brave enough to persistently play decent football and hustle. Deserves a start Sunday.
THE NOTAPRODDYGAL – 1/10 – The acid test. He said it himself. Would the dismantled and rebuilt Brendanbaw project stand the rigours of top-level CL stress? Would it, at least, fare better than the gung-ho Angeball blind assaults on Europe’s elite; often thrilling but ultimately out-manoeuvred? In a hypothetical nutshell – maybees aye, maybees naw. In reality – would it suck. Plan A was bust after 15 minutes and plan B was in a boozer somewhere playing the rebs on the jukebox.
Rodgersbaw persisted with short intricate passing against a dizzying force of 6-foot wasps buzzing around every green shirt and closing down every green space. You had to stop and count them many a time to make sure they only had ten outfield. We had the tools to go direct and get behind them – on both wings, one especially. We didn’t. We had the tools to sit TWO midfielders deep – Paulo in tandem with Calmac to stem the tide and deny them huge space. We didn’t; We stayed with Calmac Not Home Alone and being raided constantly (see what I did there, Macauly Culkin fans?).
Another Brendanbaw CL away disaster. What a record; The same song, on repeat. It’s a dirge.
MIBBERY – N/A – Never much of a feature in Europe until you get some utter roasters in charge like away in Feyenoord and Atletico last year. Tonight’s Spanish lookalike for Peaky Blinder’s Italian gangster, Luca Changretta, was a decent enough Adrien Brody performance as a competent ref.
OVERALL – FFS/10 – On nights like these you wish for the bravado of the travelling support. Or a dozen Guinness. Mostly, the same…You hope the team has some swagger too, because if you rock up at apocalyptically resonating atmospheric power-joints like the Westfalen looking for CL results you’d better have the cojones for the contest. Our all-conquering bhoys got the season’s-defining match-up this evening; beaten CL finalists, renowned as one of the most mercilessly efficient German killing-machines since Adolf caught Hi-De-Hi re-runs and suggested building some holiday homes with a twist.
This was one of the free-hits you’d casually assume by looking at the match schedule; expectations low to mid. Anything gained, an absolute positive. A real measure for the team itself, then – pitting their ability against proven elite, a Dortmund side far removed from the shambolic low of their bewildering post-covid empty stadium loss to our inferior lobotomised pretendy rivals.
No surprise then that the embarrassment of that Zombie defeat – akin to waking up beside (not my…) Queen Camilla after a heavy night on the sauce – instigated the Dortmund rebuild and subsequent rise to almost-Champions of Europe. So was it an Arnhem Bridge too far for our own prospective Euro-elite competitors? Could we maintain discipline, structure and intensity in the most heady of all away Euro atmospheres?
Nope.
No, we couldn’t. Resoundingly not.
Pumped and pumped again; thrown about like Ross McCausland at a ludge meeting where they forgot the goat. Tonight Matthew, we were Lana in the Louden pool room. Reamed. Every CL horror show of the past was re-lived as this brave new team who’d lifted hopes and dreams succumbed to the pressure disturbingly like those before them; So much so that a call was put out for a Bladerunner, in case of uncovering replicants masquerading as Celtic players.
They’re good enough players – looked fine for five minutes – but some rapid-spreading malaise took the lot of them soon as the universe conspired against us with a few bad breaks and suddenly we were being overrun and outgunned like bhoys against men. I was more disappointed with them mentally than physically. Aforementioned lucky breaks gave Dortmund the lead twice, but the Bhoys focus wavered and nerves gave too easily, and they got to experience what it’s like being the Zombies against us.
Battered, humbled and slaughtered.
The only way is up and the only hiding place doesn’t exist; get yer act together and get back at it like Celtic players and not the pussies who wheezed around the Westfalen feeling sorry for themselves.
Go Away Now
Sandman
Just give the players there normal names ffs
The last time Celtic played in Europe and also , co-incidentally , the first time BR was the Celtic manager ; I wrote in a Celtic Star comment :-
4-3-3 no mater who or what team we are playing —Does Brendan Rodgers or his backroom staff ever study the teams they are about to play ?
Also , I quoted Albert Einstein ‘s definition of ” Madness ” which Neil Lennon commented on last night ,
” Performing the same experiment over and over again and hoping to get a different result ?” So who is the maddest ? Brendan , or the good souls ? Who pay good money to watch a Manager , who is so arrogant that he fails to learn lessons in Europe , time and time again ? When you play good teams , you have to counter their strengths and exploit their weaknesses . Do you hear us Brendan & Co ????????