Hands up those of us who have coached a team or played a game in the Champions League.
No me neither. So, give or take a few, that makes just about all of us. And, yet according to the Brendan Rodgers bible, the views and opinions of this, the overwhelming majority, ought to be placed in the file marked ‘completely and utterly irrelevant’. Unless, of course, they happen to agree with him.
There are times when it does feel as if Rodgers labours under his very own Messiah complex and that he’s on some sort of mission to educate and enlighten the mere mortals with whom he happens to come into contact whilst carrying out his missionary work. Which, of course, is very kind of him.
But it’s not an act of blasphemy to say he’s just plain wrong when it comes to his continued attempts at cracking the Champions League code. Rodgers appears to be spreading the word or at least promoting the notion that some sort of miracle is what is really required in order for his side to avoid having its pants pulled down and routinely ridiculed in the big boys’ playground of the European game.
And so, even though Celtic got safely back down the road from the Highlands yesterday after rattling off a seventh straight domestic top flight win – coming from behind and eventually overwhelming Ross County – Celtic’s manager may have made the long trip south with some serious food for thought.
And not just because he’d have had one ear on the radio commentary of Aberdeen’s win over Hearts, which keeps Jimmy Thelin on his coattails at the top of the table for the time being at least. No, in this game every day is a school day and yet, even so, few would have suspected Rodgers would have to travel to Dingwall to discover what he ought to have done in Dortmund – learning a lesson in pragmatism from one of his former pupils.
Don Cowie was the first player he forked out a transfer fee for in his first managerial gig at Watford more than 15 years ago. But it was the Invernesian who dished out a lesson in staying-in-the-game to his one time mentor and Rodgers really should reflect on what went on yesterday and how hard his players were made to work for a dramatic late win – no matter how reluctantly.
Ross County relied upon resilience, discipline and a solid team structure in order to bridge the financial chasm between themselves and Scotland’s champions and come so agonisingly close to chalking up a result they had no right to achieve. Credit here where it is due. Lesser manager than Rodgers might have been completely flummoxed by Cowie’s stuffy game plan but he’s been round this particular block time and again during his time in Scottish football.
Rather than resort to panicking he turned to his bench and made the changes which allowed his team to shake off a post Westfalen lethargy and overcome the challenge in front of it. The combined cameo contributions of Kyogo Furuhashi, James Forrest, Paulo Bernardo and Luke McCowan were simply too great for Cowie’s team to cope with and so, ultimately, the home side ran out of steam.
It’s happened so many times now – and very often at this same outpost in the north – that it can’t be described as an accident. On the contrary, Celtic and Rodgers are experts at this kind of thing. But, be that as it may, the traumas they continue to experience when taken outside of the comfort zone of their own borders do require something of a rethink where the manager’s approach is concerned.
And, who knows, it may even resemble the kind of tactical template Cowie put in place yesterday to test the champions to the limits of their resolve. Just because it ended in yet another hard luck story, doesn’t mean that there was not something for Rodgers to take away from it and to use to his own side’s advantage at some future point. Or in little more than a fortnight.
That’s when Celtic will face the task of going toe-to-toe with last season’s Europa League winners and the travelling supporters would gladly take a hard luck story over another humiliating humping every day of the week. Of course, Rodgers has stated with considerable clarity already that he has absolutely no intention of sacrificing his deeply held principles when he sends his side back out on foreign soil next time around against Atalanta.
And that stubborn mindedness would be admirable had it not previously subjected Celtic to a succession of humiliations on the global stage. It goes without saying, Rodgers will not resort to setting up his team like Ross County did yesterday. Nor would anyone expect him to suddenly wash his hands of all the beliefs he holds so dear.
But that doesn’t mean his strategy can’t be tweaked and customised to suit when he rolls it out in Bergamo. On the contrary, it would seem like ego stroking madness to stick with the one size fits all approach when it has failed his club so spectacularly, so many times before.
And it’s not as if Rodgers hasn’t tempered his own attacking instincts previously. As a matter of fact he spoke with a great deal of pride about doing exactly that during his time at Leicester City, when his side pulled off a stunning 5-2 away win against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City at the Etihad.
Rodgers even referenced that tactical masterclass on his return to Celtic, when asked how he plans to go about delivering on his promise to improve and restore the club’s European status.
He said: “That was the first time I ever went into a game where I wasn’t pressing high and really being super-aggressive on the pressure. We closed up the space much deeper.
“That was part of my growth as a coach. Because I thought: ‘OK, it’s not how I see the game and how I want to play. And 99 percent of the time I won’t!’. “But that was the first time in my career I did it – and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the 5-2, absolutely.
“That’s not how I work all the time, but it was an acknowledgement of the super quality of the team we were facing. And how to take a different tactical approach, while still being really effective and working well.”