Paulo Bernardo was humming along to the Celtic Jota tune even before he followed the Portuguese favourite to Parkhead. And the midfielder is convinced the returning Hoops ace will be even more on song in his second spell.
Bernardo was delighted to see his old Benfica pal sign up for another stint with Celts after 18 months away. The pair grew up together in Portugal and Jota helped give the playmaker the big sell when the Scottish champs came calling two summers ago. But they never got the chance to hit the high notes together with the wide man hitting the road for Saudi Arabia and then France.
The bold move to bring him back has paid off for Brendan Rodgers though and Bernardo reckons hearing the fans chant the old Jota song will be music to everyone’s ears at Parkhead. He said: “I heard the song before – even when I was still in Portugal! I think it’s a nice song. Jota did very well the last two years when he was here. The fans love him and I think he loves the fans too.
“He’s really happy. I talked to him and he’s really excited to be part of the club again and to be here with us. He just wants to play football again. It’s nice to be with him again. We played together in Benfica for one pre-season.
“I think I knew him as a kid. He was always at Benfica, like me. We were together for just one pre-season because he’s three years older than me and I was in a few teams below him.
“His game was always to dribble and to go forward to the players and score goals and make assists. I think he’s a really complete player and I think he will definitely help the group right now. He was unbelievable at Benfica and he was unbelievable at Celtic. I hope he does better here now.”
Jota won’t be on board for tonight’s Champions League clash against Aston Villa in Birmingham – and neither will departed striker Kyogo. The Japanese hitman headed to Rennes while Jota arrived in the other direction.
Bernardo admitted it was a blow to see the forward go – but with Jota checking in and talk of Kieran Tierney on his way in the summer or possibly early, the midfielder is convinced Celtic are in strong shape. He said: “It’s sad to lose a player. Kyogo was an unbelievable player at Celtic, I think one of the best. But yeah, it’s football and we have to move on and he has to move on too. Football is like that and we need to be ready for that.
“I think we have a great group. If we can have this quality, it’s great for us. If we have a competitive group, it’s good for everyone.”
Amid the flurry of transfer activity and pile of gossip going in the final week of the window, it has almost been lost in the wash Celtic have a heavyweight Champions League clash this evening. The Hoops have already banked their place in the knockout stages but have an outside chance of finding in the top eight.
Okay, they might need some divine intervention to get the sequence of results required to get there, but they are technically still in the mix. Villa have a more realistic chance of bypassing the play-off round if they claim three points – and there’s also a suggestion from some stattos that it might even be better if Celts DON’T win tonight, given the state of the table and potential opponents.
Trying to work it all out is enough to give paracetamol a headache and Bernardo admitted he’s not even tried. But that won’t be the case against Villa – because he’s not even considering anything other than going out and attempting to beat the English big guns.
Bernardo said: “I don’t know (about who they could face) and I’ve not tried to see. We have a job to do before and then let’s see. It’s Champions League night again and I’m very excited to be here and to play at this level again. We face a top team in England, so we are really excited to play. I think it will be a great match to watch.
“We want to win all the games so we will do our best to get a very good result here. In Celtic, I think we are used to playing with pressure all the games, because we have a lot of responsibility to win every game.
“So we are used to pressure, and I think this is just a normal game to us, not playing differently, because we will try to do our best and to get a great result here.”
Bernardo is also well aware of the extra spice that gets sprinkled on these cross border collisions. The Portugal under 21 skipper knows what it’s like to go up against the noisy next door neighbours and the added incentive it brings.
He said: “I heard a little bit about the rivalry but we are here to do our job. We will try to win of course, we are at Celtic, so we will do our best to win the game and beat them. It probably is like Portugal, I played against Spain before and teams in Spain. We always want to win.
“Yeah, it’s pride but we are here to do our job and some things we have to put on the side and then put the work in.
“We are doing very well in the Champions League and domestically. We won’t stop here, we have another match from the group stage and after we start the knockout. So we will try to do our best game here then focus on the next one.”