Many Celtic fans travelled to Dortmund more in hope than expectation of pulling off an away win in the Champions League.
After all, the club’s away record in the competition does not make great reading but with the way Celtic are playing domestically right now, there was the expectation that at least the current Scottish champions could have been competitive and avoided a Champions League humbling.
However, Celtic got exposed time and again and even in the early stages, Rodgers’ high pressing was found out after Jamie Gittens ran clean through only to be brought down by Kasper Schmeichel on the 5th minute to concede an early penalty.
After that it was a tough night for Celtic despite Daizen Maeda’s almost insant reply to Emre Can’s 7th minute penalty conversion.
Dortmund not only punished every mistake Celtic made, they continually exposed the defensive high line the team was taking and eventually the goals just started flooding in in the 7-1 defeat.
Brendan Rodgers will not allow Celtic to ‘camp’
Brendan Rodgers was bullish about Celtic’s style of play as he refused to back down to a line of questioning by a journalist on TNT Sports in his immediate post-match interview.
Reporter: “We talked to Callum McGregor, he says the players will learn from this, but Celtic fans will want to know why this keeps happening. It happened in Madrid. It’s happened against PSG twice and Barcelona. Is there a reason why these big defeats keep happening in the big games in Europe?
Rodgers: “Yeah, yeah, it’s exactly the teams you just mentioned, Barcelona, Real Madrid.”
Reporter [interupting Rodgers]: “Do you have to adapt again, though, against the big teams in Europe? Will you adapt in the future?”
Rodgers: “Well, we always have to adapt, but sometimes the quality just breaks through that. So are we going to sit in and camp and wait and wait? No, we won’t do that.
“We play a way that allows us domestically to dominate. We know what’s going to be difficult at times for us to do that, but we still have to show our ability with the ball.
“And I thought that tonight we weren’t anywhere near that level. We just gave it away too easily, and then, obviously, we then get punished from that.
“We had two penalties in the first half, from a direct corner the guy scores an unbelievable goal from outside the box.
“So before we know it, we were 4-1 down. So clearly that can affect your confidence. But I was so proud of the players second half.
“We kept fighting, kept our spirit up, and like I say, we’ll be very disappointed with the performance. It’s the first time that we’ve had this losing feeling for a long time, but you have to learn from it and move on.”
Celtic must learn ahead of Atalanta fixture
The 7-1 defeat to Dortmund is a wake up call but it is one that the Celtic manager must take on board. The next Champions League fixture against Atalanta will post a similar threat to Dortmund.
The current Europa League holders held Premier League side Arsenal 0-0 in Italy and face Shakhtar Donetsk tonight.
With players like Ademola Lookman in their ranks, the Celtic backline have another tricky striker they will need to shackle and not give the same space they gave the likes of Dortmund’s Gittens and Adeyemi.
For now, Rodgers will need to put this result behind him and pick up his players for the challenge of Ross County away on Sunday where only a comprehensive win will do for the Celtic support.
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