Brendan Rodgers saw one big positive during Celtic’s 2-0 loss to Feyenoord on Tuesday.
It was a deflating start to our UEFA Champions League campaign that saw us fall to defeat despite arguably having the better of the first half in Rotterdam.
Feyenoord got a massive boost from Calvin Stengs’ 45-minute strike and took charge of the second half once Gustaf Lagerbielke and Odin Thiago Holm had been sent off.
While Alireza Jahanbakhsh did smash in a second, Celtic kept the margin of defeat down to just two goals. That was no mean feat playing against a confident team with nine men.
“It’s just a level of belief,” Rodgers told The Herald on Friday. “That’s why I call the Champions League big-belief games.
“You believe at home [Scotland] because you’re playing at the level, you know the level, and you’re dominant. You go into Europe, you are playing against a different level of player.
“One, when you go behind it’s not always as straightforward to get back into the game. And, two, the other teams normally find extra confidence because they’re at that level.
“That’s what pleased me the other night. We didn’t unravel. Mentally we weren’t broken, our spirit was there and we kept fighting. We were blocking and covering spaces with two men less. That’s a huge challenge.
“The one thing I want to see in my time here – no matter how the game is going, your spirit never, ever gets broken. Because in football you normally get another chance.
“Feyenoord came off the pitch the other night, they know they’ve won the game 2-0 against nine men, but they also know we’ll give them a problem the next time we play.
“When we went behind, we didn’t down tools. That’s a great thing to have in your make-up because the next time when you’ve got 11 players we’ll be there again.”
Callum McGregor made a similar point right after the match. He felt that his team-mates had really dug in to keep the score down when a lesser team may have capitulated.
While many Celtic supporters may argue that the team did capitulate at the start of the second half, we did at least find a way to leave with our heads high. Imagine how we would all have felt had it been a 4-0 or 5-0 defeat.
As it was, the team can take away a positive as well as some obvious lessons to be learned. That kind of grit is going to be vital going forward as we hunt two domestic trophies and try to succeed in Europe.
The group stage campaign is young and we have two big home games to come. If we can take four or six points from those Lazio and Atletico Madrid matches we’ll be in a solid place at the halfway stage.
Between now and the visit of the Serie A side, we have two tricky Premiership visits to Livingston and Motherwell.
In other news, Gustaf Lagerbielke and Odin Thiago Holm will both be unavailable for the clash with Lazio
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