Brendan Rodgers issues ‘we can hurt Bayern’ rallying cry ahead of Celtic’s Champions League knockout playoff encounter with the German giants tomorrow night…
The Hoops kickstarted their preparation for their mammoth Champions League two-legged affair with a scintillating 5-0 victory over Raith Rovers in the Scottish Cup fifth round on Saturday evening courtesy of Daizen Maeda’s hat-trick, Luke McCowan and Yang Hyun-jun.
Now, attention swiftly turns to Celtic’s mouth-watering game in Europe’s elite club competition against the current Bundesliga league leaders.
‘We’ve got goals in us; we’ve shown that at all levels’
Although the visitors are odds-on favourites for the tie, Rodgers insists his side are more than capable of taking a positive result to Bavaria next week: “I don’t have any doubt that we can hurt Bayern,” the Irishman said. “We’ve got goals in us; we’ve shown that at all levels. We can score goals. They’ve obviously got threats but it’s the knock-out stages of the Champions League.
“Every team has big quality and I’ve been up against some of these teams, so I know how they play.”
‘It’s going to be a fantastic game’
Rodgers added: “Vincent Kompany will have played against my teams at Swansea, Leicester and Liverpool so he’ll know how my teams’ work. It’s going to be a fantastic game, and I’ll look forward to it. It’s my job to convince the players that we can get a positive result.”
Since Brendan Rodgers returned to Celtic in the summer of 2023, the Hoops have only lost once in seven matches at home in the Champions League. The Scottish champions were unbeaten in four of their Champions League phase outings – winning three and drawing once.
Celtic building a strong home record in Champions League
Extending that impressive record to five games this season would give Celtic a fighting chance ahead of the second leg in Munich next Tuesday night when a large Celtic support will be in attendance after UEFA gave us the green light last week amid fears that the Villa Park flare-thrower would cost the Celtic away support that chance to attend our biggest European away match in over a decade.
Conor Spence
