Auston Trusty admitted it was an angry dressing room after the final whistle on Wednesday night. But no one in the Celtic camp was raging at Cameron Carter-Vickers.
The big defender held his hands up for the first half gaff that left the Hoops playing catch up against Club Brugge. Yet he didn’t need to. Carter-Vickers has more than enough credit in the bank to get off the hook for a rare boo boo. And the USA showed immense character – along with his Celtic teammates – for getting back into the game and claiming what could be a priceless point in the grand scheme of things in this new look Champions League.
Trusty said: “We have his back. I don’t think any defender, any player, wants that to happen to him. But, you know, sometimes it’s part of football. I’ve had own goals as well, so it’s one where you need a teammate to get your back.
“So I went over to him, made sure his head was up. With all of us, he knows that we have his back.You don’t want to make mistakes, but you feel fine to make mistakes, because you know your teammates have your back.
“The game happened so fast, so I’m not in that position. I’m looking away, I’m also looking, I’m trying to find my next pass as well, so I have to go back and watch it. But either way, he made the decision, we have his back.
“He showed his character and also the team showed its character. We bounced back and the game went on and we had plenty of life left in it.”
No one was raging at Carter-Vickers – but the squad were fuming at failing to capture all three points. A draw seemed fair enough given the tough start and a difficult opening period. By the end it was Club Brugge hanging on and the Hoops felt another big win was within grasp.
Trusty said: “I’ve been in locker rooms when you get away from this kind of game and guys are excited, but you go back in the locker room tonight and see guys p***ed off and really, really upset and that shows a lot of the character that’s in the team.
“We weren’t happy with how we played in the first half, but we thought that we should have won this game and it was a real opportunity for us, not just to get one point but to get three points. Obviously, you take the point, but it’s good to see that guys are angry going into the locker room and sitting there just quiet.”
The Celtic squad were not quiet on the pitch. In fact it took something not seen in these parts to get the side up and running again, with Kasper Schmeichel calling for an emergency huddle after the shock goal. Trusty said: “We just weren’t playing in our character in the first half, so I think we all felt it. Sometimes you need that little huddle to wake everybody up and say, okay, what’s happened has happened, now we can move on from it.
“So that was a moment for us to make some changes and get some momentum back in the game.”
Schmeichel didn’t make too much fuss about the incident but he admitted Celts needed a jolt at that point. He said: “”Probably on reflection. We weren’t ourselves in the first half. “We didn’t get up to the tempo of the game or play at the intensity that we know we can.
“Luckily we had half-time to change that and change our press a little bit and things got better in the second half. It (the own goal) was one of those things. I am showing for Nicolas Kuhn. I think Nicolas could have passed to me.
“He does well to get the pass to Cam but he is surprised by it and obviously he is getting pressed. It is so loud in here that he hasn’t heard me. It is one of those things. We just move on, it happens.”
It certainly happened against decent teams like Brugge and Trusty insisted Celtic are still in solid shape to qualify from the group stage with eight points from five games. He said: “That’s the level we play at and that’s the level of the team. “When we train, it’s the same level. We have to keep it that way because if you make a mistake, you may do something and you get punished. “Even in training, it’s just as intense as the games, if not more intense.
“I think we’ve shown that we have the quality and we can play with any team and we back ourselves. We’re confident and the team’s confident. We know our ability and we’ve shown to you guys but also shown to ourselves that we’re here. So we’re in good shape.”