Knockout football in the Champions League is returning to Celtic and it’s very much deserved.
Celtic’s 1-0 win over Young Boys on Wednesday night was deserved, but the players had to work for it more than they should have done.
Given the nature of how the first half went, including Arne Engels’ saved penalty, then you just knew, at some point, Kasper Schmeichel was going to be needed.
Even though the Celtic players remained calm in the second half, with all that dominance resulting in no goals, you could sense Young Boys growing into the game and getting more confident.
At 0-0, and the Parkhead faithful started to get a little nervy, the man in between the sticks was called into action and he produced the goods.
James McFadden lauds Kasper Schmeichel’s saves as Celtic beat Young Boys
Schmeichel signed a new contract before the match and you can see why Celtic, as well as Brendan Rodgers, wanted to keep him on board beyond this season.
James McFadden couldn’t believe the Swiss champions didn’t open the scoring in the second half, despite having guilt-edge chances to do so.
The former Scotland star put it down to one man, and one man only, as he described Schmeichel’s saves at 0-0 as ‘unbelievable’ and ‘outrageous’, as he told BBC Radio Scotland.
“Oh, unbelievable,” said McFadden. “Monteiro just goes past Carter-Vickers with ease. Then, it looks like he has potentially overrun it.
“Males, when it comes to him, I just expect him to score. Kasper Schmeichel with just the most outrageous first save, then he comes back up and it goes back to him.
“Then, I don’t know how he has kept that out. It looks like Young Boys were going to take the lead. Unbelievably.”
How Schmeichel reacted to Celtic’s win over Young Boys
Joe Hart’s retirement in the summer meant that Kasper had big shoes to fill and, so far, it’s thumbs up from the former Premier League title winner.
Rodgers worked with Kasper at Leicester City, so that past relationship has worked wonders for Celtic because they are now getting the rewards for it.
After Schmeichel recorded his third – and most important – clean sheet of the Champions League campaign, he simply had a three-word response on Instagram.
‘What a night,’ wrote Celtic’s number one on social media.
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