“A brilliant opportunity for the players. They are really excited to play in this stadium, so we want to make sure it’s a positive experience for ourselves,” Callum McGregor…
Two bizarrely short media conferences from the Civitas Metropolitan Stadium in Madrid from Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers, reported HERE, and club captain Callum McGregor ahead of this evening’s vital Champions League match against Atletico Madrid as Celtic look to take something from the game to maintain a hope of European football after Christmas – which was the stated target from the manager ahead of the campaign getting underway.
Celtic certainly haven’t had the breaks but sometimes you make your own luck. The crazy wall in Rotterdam and the positioning of the smallest man in the team in the key position within in started an unfortunate sequence of events, two red cards in that game then to Glasgow and the VAR decision to rule out a goal from Luis Palma that not one Lazio player claimed for. Correct? Probably, but freakish nevertheless.
That ultimately turned a victory into a defeat, showing just how harsh Champions League football can be.
On this day Celtic beat Barcelona at Celtic Park in the Champions League in 2012 and Lazio in Rome in 2019 in the Europa League. Is this the day that we win away and add Atletico Madrid to our 7th November scalps? Let’s hope so.
“I think for us in European football there has to be a mentality change, a shift that when we go out on to the pitch we believe and we don’t want to come off the pitch until we get a result,” Callum McGregor said.
“The performances have been getting better and better, but I think the biggest thing the players can take from that is trying to change that mentality – that there’s almost an expectation to succeed and try and get through the group.
“So tomorrow night’s a brilliant opportunity for the players. They’re really excited to play in this stadium so we want to make sure it’s a positive experience for ourselves,” the Celtic captain added.
“The performance levels in the first three games in the group have been slowly getting better so it’s a mindset switch that we have to try and come here and perform the way that we want to, and can we back that up with a big result as well.
“I can’t wait. It’s a beautiful stadium, so as a football player that’s where you want to be. You want to be playing in the big stadiums, go and affect the game and show your personality, and I’m sure we’ll do that as a group.”
Matt Corr’s new book Majic, Stan and the King of Japan is out now and Neil Lennon, the Celtic captain that season, has written the foreword for us.
You can get a signed copy of the hardback version direct from Celtic Star Books by clicking on the image below. It’s also available an an e-book via Amazon Kindle and please note that all colour photographs that appear in the beautifully presented printed hardback book are also available in the Kindle version of Majic, Stan and the King of Japan…
