A 5-0 home victory in the opening leg of Celtic’s Champions League play-off tie with Astana all but guaranteed a return trip to the lucrative group stage of world football’s greatest competition.
But, as we all witnessed last season, no lead is truly safe. It seems as if that memory may be fresh in the minds of manager Brendan Rodgers and his captain, Scott Brown.
The two sang a similar tune ahead of tomorrow night’s clash in Kazakhstan, promising zero complacency from the Hoops.
Brown noted that Celtic can’t afford to not take every game seriously at this point in time.
“We take every game seriously,” Brown told the Celtic website. “We always do an analysis of our opponents and make sure we do everything properly. You never know what can happen in football, but as long as we do everything properly and start the game the way we plan to, we should hopefully get a good result.”
One of the reason’s for Celtic’s quick and invincible turnaround under Rodgers has been a renewed focus on life off the pitch. Brown noted that Rodgers has place an emphasis on staying fit — meaning eating right and watching their bodies all-year round.
“We’re a lot fitter than we were before,” said Brown. “The gaffer and his backroom staff have also had us watching a lot more videos of Astana to see how they play and to see how we can attack them and find way through them.”
Given what we’ve seen from Celtic under Rodgers’ tutelage, anything less than a full effort in a European tie would be disheartening to see.
Don’t expect the Bhoys to let up one bit despite a 5-goal advantage. If anything, expect keeping a clean sheet on the road to be top of the goals list for this away-leg. It’ll be great practice for what could be another brutal group for Celtic to navigate.
After all, the Bhoys’ away form outside of the Barcelona match last season was impressive to say the least. That was something Rodgers was hoping to draw from ahead of this match.
"“I think it’s a game where you can’t just discard it. We had a great result in the first leg but we had to work really hard and it will be equally hard tomorrow. We always pick a team to get the best result that we can. Our approach is that it’s 0-0 and we want to get a good result.”"
While the fans won’t be watching Tuesday night’s tie with held-breath, the ensuing group stage draw will be one such affair, especially if current results elsewhere in the play-off stages go the way they did in the first leg.
Celtic appear likely headed for pot 4, and less control over the groups available to them. It means cheering on Reijka and rooting for improbable results against Liverpool, Sevilla and others in the “league route” of the play-offs.
Next: Celtic are Scottish Football's piggy bank these days
But, don’t expect the players to be worried about that until they take care of their own business, after all, they’ll have laid down their own marker before any other match gets underway.