Callum McGregor insists Celtic are going to have to turn it up to the max in Munich to produce the biggest performance of his Hoops career.
The Parkhead skipper is convinced his side can get the better of Bayern in Tuesday night’s Champions League playoff second leg in Germany. Celtic will need to overturn last week’s 2-1 defeat in Glasgow and McGregor is aware it will need the best display of his decade plus in the Hoops.
He said: “Yeah, I think so. I think we have to max out in terms of performance level, and there’s no reason why we can’t. Having seen what we’ve seen in the first game, yes, we need a bit of luck and we need to be really good on the night, but like I said, we just go and we leave nothing on the pitch and see where we go from there. It would be brilliant obviously and that’s the aim now. I want us to come off with no regrets and see where we can get to.”
McGregor knows Celtic are up against it – but he’s got belief after rattling Bayern in the final stages of the first leg. He said: “Obviously, we’re still right in the game. When you get to these games, everybody’s got to believe that you can win the game.
“And even the way the game played out, there were very small margins in terms of the game, and on another night, with a different referee, who knows? The number one aspect was that the performance was there, we’re still in the game.
“I think if one of the big teams loses 2-1, then everybody still thinks they’re in the tie, so I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t feel that way. And especially the last 25 minutes, that gives us a good template for the game.
“They knew they were in a game anyway, but you see at the end, their reaction when the whistle goes, they were happy to get over the line at 2-1. That’s a big compliment when top players are celebrating winning the game when the final whistle goes, you see how much it means to them.
“What we did in the last 25 minutes, we made them defend, we created really good situations in the game, and maybe on another night we could have got something. It gives us good belief. If we can change the momentum of the game, and have a wee bit more of the ball, and make them defend, then you see that we could be good in the game.
“That has to be the mindset for the players now, to recover, and then when we arrive into Tuesday night, we give it absolutely everything we’ve got, and we leave nothing on the pitch, and see where we go.”
Celtic have made the continent’s big guns take note with their displays in the Champions League this term. But McGregor wants to pull off the kind of incredible result that will get all of Europe talking.
He said: “That’s it. We’ll only do that by results, probably first and foremost, results are what makes people sit up and say, right, we’ll watch the game and see why. The performance level has got to be there, but results have got to be there as well, and that’s what we’ve done I think.
“There’s been a few results throughout the time that maybe people watching the Champions League scores coming in have looked and thought, ‘right, okay, what’s going on here, Celtic have got a result, let’s have a look at the game’.
“And then, when teams like Bayern turn up, then they give you that respect because you’ve beat Leipzig, you’ve drawn against Atalanta, really top teams. That’s on us to keep improving and keep trying to narrow that gap as much as we can.”