Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou believes making a splash on the European stage was a “bridge too far” for his new Hoops squad.
The Greek-Australian tactician has had an incredible debut campaign in Glasgow that looks on the path to ending with domestic dominance. Celtic already have the Premier Sports Cup in the bag and sit top of the Premiership with 7 games remaining. As well as that, we’re also in the Scottish Cup semi-finals as a potential treble awaits us.
However, it was a different story on the European stage. Celtic failed to get past their opening UCL qualifier against Midtjylland before being bundled out of the Europe League group stages. Granted, they were in a group with high-flying Bayer Leverkusen and Real Betis.
Bodo/Glimt would then disappointingly knock us out of the Europa Conference League in comfortable fashion. And as he reflected on Europe as a whole, Ange believes it simply came too soon. As quoted by Optus Sport, Ange said: “Look, if you look back on it probably (too soon). I mean, our actual group stage was, was good. We kind of grew into it. We had Leverkusen and they were a fantastic side and Real Betis who were flying in Spain. So I knew it was going to be a massive challenge for us, but when you look at it, we started the group slowly, but we finished pretty decent, pretty strong.
“We ended up winning three games and in a lot of other groups that would’ve got you through. It’s the two games against Bodo/Glimt that we kind of let ourselves down. You’re probably right, it was maybe a bridge too far for us this year to be sort of trying to compete on multiple fronts.
“But the reality of it is, that’s a failure on our behalf because this football club will always be involved in Europe and we want to be involved in the Champions League. So you’ve got to be able to cope with that withstand that, embrace that pressure. So we’ll learn from that this year that, that part of the journey, wasn’t a success for us.”
Europe didn’t go to plan for Celtic
The manner of our UCL exit was understandable. Ange had barely had time to get players through the door and he was playing with what could only be described as a patched-up side.
The Europa League was more respectable than our group stage exit makes it seem. After all, we did bag 9 points with wins over Ferencvaros [x2] and Real Betis respectively. We came close to winning in Leverkusen and also netted 3 goals away to Betis as well. We firmly showed ourselves as an attacking threat.
Celtic also managed more points in the Europa League group stages than Rangers. Therefore, it’s important to recognise that it wasn’t a complete disaster even if there are things to improve upon.
What was majorly disappointing was our Europa Conference League exit to Bodo/Glimt. Not just because we were soundly beaten 5-1 on aggregate by the Norwegian champions, but because we didn’t manage to lay a glove on them all game either. It was far too straightforward for them to stifle us, even at Celtic Park.
A lesson to be learned of course, and this season was always about re-establishing ourselves as a dominant force domestically. In fact, some even had it down as a transitional season, showing just how successful Ange has been in year 1, regardless of how it ends.
But Europe will be a big focus for the club next season. It’s time to start lighting the continent up once again.
In other news, Rogic and Maeda coverage shows exactly what kind of fortnight Celtic supporters are in for
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