Brendan Rodgers has tried to galvanise his troops ahead of their big clash with Bayern Munich by insisting that anything can happen in sport…
The Irishman leads his team out at the Allianz Arena tonight in Munich knowing that only a win will suffice, if they are to progress beyond the UEFA Champions League play-off round this year.
‘You have to play without any fear’
Helping to restore some pride at this level in European football after some pretty hefty defeats, Brendan Rodgers sees no reason why his men can’t go out and deliver the best performance of their life in Germany.
Speaking on the eve before his team’s crucial match with Vincent Kompany’s team, he said: “I think it’s just spelling out that you come to this level and you have to play without any fear. I think there’s worse things in football that can happen if you lose or worse things in life that can happen than losing in football. So for us, we want to ensure that when we come in after the game.
‘We have given it absolutely everything’
“If we don’t go through we want to make sure we have given it absolutely everything. I’m so glad to have this group of players that have a great mentality and an incredible professionalism. If they can go and show that and then we know that we’re in with the chance and as long as you can come in and just say, listen, we were beaten by the better team. The regret is always if you don’t, then you just turn up too late for the game.
‘There’s no second chance. We’ve got the one opportunity’
“So, there’s no second chance. We’ve got the one opportunity, we’ve got to be clever, we’ve got to be bright, we’ve got to be brave in the game. And if we can do that, we’ve shown, and history’s shown in sport that, as I said, anything can happen, so that’s what we focus on,” the Celtic manager said speaking to the media yesterday afternoon at the Allianz Arena in Munich.
Tonight will mark arguably the most important match in Rodgers’ two spells as Celtic coach, with the Carnlough man eager to take the club back to the dizzying heights of the Champions League’s Last-16.
‘It’s a huge game, so it’s also a huge opportunity’
“It is. It’s in the context of our European season this season,” he said. “It’s a huge game, so it’s also a huge opportunity. I see it as a wonderful opportunity. I know that when we come out after tomorrow night, win-lose the game, this has been a great adventure for us this season and that’s what we wanted to do. We wanted to bring stability. We wanted to make our supporters proud. We wanted to show that we have that respect and that we can compete.”
Whether or not Bayern’s star man Harry Kane plays is irrelevant to the Celtic boss too, as it won’t affect his game plan, whilst he admitted another world-class player would simply fill the void in his absence. “It doesn’t change anything in terms of what we need and want to win the game,” he added. “If Harry didn’t play it is a big miss for them but I am pretty sure another world class player will come in and play. I would expect Harry to play.”
Paul Gillespie
