Liam Scales has reflected on his role in Celtic’s shootout win over Rangers.
In the most unlikely of circumstances, a threadbare Celtic side survived a Rangers onslaught to make it to penalty shootout.
There, Martin O’Neill’s players maintained a 100% record from the spot as opposing pair James Tavernier and Djeidi Gassama missed the target, allowing Tomas Cvancara to score the winning penalty.
But had things been slightly different, it would’ve been Scales stepping up with the captain’s armband.
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Celtic’s Liam Scales on win vs Rangers
Speaking after the game, Scales said: “It’s up there, it’s right up there.
“It would be one of the proudest moments for sure, captaining the team to win here.
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“I was actually the fifth penalty taker as well, so I’m glad it finished up before me, to be fair! It was definitely one of the proudest moments.
“The coin was blue on one side and green on the other, funnily enough, so you didn’t really have a choice.
“You’re just hoping that it lands on the green side and you get to go down your end, but obviously it didn’t. I still had good confidence in the lads. We practised our penalties yesterday.
“I think all the lads who stepped up were brilliant. Good courage and good technique as well.
“But again, it’s a quarter-final, we still need to go on and win the semi and win the final for it to be worthwhile.
“It was a difficult game, probably not the best game. Sort of different to last weekend, but when we had to defend, we defended and sometimes it’s like that here.
“It’s brilliant to keep a clean sheet and then coming down to penalties, it can go either way and luckily we were better.”
On the captaincy, Scales said: “Just before the game, I suppose. It wasn’t really said, I just realised it coming up just before the warm-up.
“”I think we do have a team full of leaders. It might not be the most vocal team, but the way the players play and compose themselves on the pitch, I think we have a lot of leaders.”
Who was your Celtic man of the match against Rangers?
Celtic’s absentees vs Rangers
The news of club captain Callum McGregor’s absence had been kept quiet until the morning of the game, and rumours had spread until his omission from the squad was confirmed.
Kieran Tierney, who was a likely candidate for the captaincy in McGregor’s absence, also missed the game through a foot injury.
He joins Arne Engels and Callum Osmand on the list of players injured in O’Neill’s interim spells, while Kasper Schmeichel also missed the squad.
And that’s not even mentioning the long-term injuries of Cameron Carter-Vickers, Alistair Johnston and Jota.
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