Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers reacts to Diego Simeone’s comments

Diego Simeone did not earn himself a lot of new fans with his actions at Celtic Park following the 2-2 draw, as he barely acknowledged Brendan Rodgers’ offer of a handshake. But since then, the Atletico Madrid manager has had a lot of positive things about the Hoops, with the two teams set to meet in the reverse Champions League fixture at the Metropolitano Stadium.

Atletico Madrid will undeniably be the favourites going into the match. That being said, Celtic showed in the first leg that they have the ability to compete with Simeone’s side. The Hoops took the lead twice and perhaps should have won it late, with the visitors going down to ten men after Rodrigo De Paul was sent off.

Simeone clearly is not taking Celtic lightly. The legendary Atletico Madrid manager has been very complimentary about the Hoops and their style of play lately.

As reported by 67 Hail Hail, when asked about the matter and whether Celtic had earned themselves a bit more respect with their performances, Rodgers said:

"“I believe so. The cynics will probably tell us we only have one point. But for a club and a team like ourselves, it’s all about improving that level of confidence. That will come through performance.“We maybe haven’t had the results and points on the board, especially in the last two games, which we would have deserved. But we are very happy with the performance levels. We want to keep that going. We want to see if we can take more points out of the next three games than what we did in the first three.”"

Celtic boss reacts to Simeone’s comments

Celtic will have to make sure that they avoid a repeat of last season. The Hoops had done very well against Real Madrid at home even if they lost, but were completely outplayed in the Spanish capital.

Celtic will need a better performance and result in Madrid this time around. If they don’t, finishing anything but bottom of the group would become very difficult.

One would expect Celtic to play their natural game against Atletico Madrid, even away from home. But at the same time, perhaps there is also a need to be a bit more pragmatic in games like this in order to get results. That is something that the Hoops have done very well over the years in Europe’s elite competition.