Some Celtic fans don’t deserve Brendan Rodgers.
And they’ll only understand how true that is when he’s no longer there and they feel a sense of loss bordering on bereavement. No matter what he does, even going to Italy in the Champions League on Wednesday night and taking a precious point from Atalanta, last season’s winners of the Europa League, Brendan is still condemned to be The Unforgiven by his detractors.
Following Celtic’s seven goal dismembering at the hands of Borussia Dortmund, I had a caller on the radio who was representative of the supporter element with long memories and short tempers. He made the obligatory reference to the manager having once left Celtic for Leicester City to begin with, and then suggested that if Brendan couldn’t tailor his tactics to suit different occasions then Celtic should “Change him.”
It was all part of what the manager called an “Assault on the spirit.” When Brendan then dared to rebuke the anti-social element who are inching the club closer to severe action from UEFA over the use of pyrotechnics at European matches social media was ablaze with recrimination. Brendan had said any refusal to comply with the club’s wishes regarding flares would show the dissident fans didn’t really care about Celtic.
The general tone of the complaints made against him was to the effect that supporters wouldn’t take lessons on affection for the club from someone who had once left Celtic in mid-season to take up another job elsewhere.
Trading “Immortality for mediocrity” as the banner displayed inside Celtic Park summed up the situation at the time.
Swapping jobs and moving to a bigger company on higher wages as you and I might know it. When Brendan returned to Celtic in the aftermath of Ange Postecoglou swopping jobs and moving to a bigger company for higher wages he was initially subjected to hostile behaviour.
I wrote here at the time that his first media briefing was not so much a press conference as Rodgers being held in custody and interviewed under caution. Anything he said was written down and would be used in evidence against him at a later date. One league and cup double later, some people still go on about Leicester City any time the slightest thing goes wrong.
The irony is it is the fans, and not Rodgers, who have to learn to be pragmatic. Losing seven goals in Dortmund was evidence of a severely under par performance on the night, but even the great and the good have to take the rough with the smooth sometimes. I had the pleasure of pulling up a seat and watching Real Madrid’s breathtaking win over Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday night.
It was a scintillating game of seven superlative goals and wonderful individual performances from a glittering array of performers. No team from Scotland could have lived with either of them because we are only capable of a variation of the game they play.
We have a domestic game that attracts big crowds and stimulates interest and controversy in equal measure, but once the Premiership goes into Europe harsher standards apply and we are sometimes left exposed. There’s no shame attached because that is essentially what a pecking order is all about.
But in the midst of all the lavish entertainment in Spain last midweek Dortmund still managed to ship five goals away from home. It’s the Champions League.
These things can happen. And I haven’t heard of any public apologies being issued by the losers in the Fatherland.
Which is another way of paying tribute to Rodgers, and his players, for withstanding all that was thrown at them by Atalanta and still returning home with something to show for their resilience. The experience will doubtless stand them in good stead today at Motherwell when they continue the defence of the title.
There was a form of post-traumatic stress disorder after Dortmund, getting out of jail with a belated goal to win against Ross County and blowing a two-goal lead to draw with Aberdeen at home last weekend. But psychological scarring has been removed by a draw in Bergamo that acted like a skin graft on the team as a whole. And the manager is entitled to feel a sense of personal achievement at the same time.
Who knows, if Celtic beat RB Leipzig in their next Champions League tie we might even get through the whole episode without anybody mentioning Leicester City.