Celtic will play Shakhtar Donetsk in tonight’s opening Champions League match with one statistic illustrating the vast change the club has gone through since Martin O’Neill’s resignation. Of the 13 players who featured when the teams last met – less than three years ago – only Aiden McGeady remains at the club.
And none of the players from that truly awful night in Donetsk when Celtic were turned over 3-0 will feature tonight.
Those two matches against what was then a clever but unexceptional side showed just how far short Celtic were as Champions League challengers as well as betraying a naivety in Martin O’Neill. At Celtic Park, Shakhtar lost two men within the first 60 minutes, yet O’Neill made one of the greatest miscalculations of his career.
Rather than press on for more goals that would have allowed Celtic to at least match Shakhtar in the head-to-head standings that would become crucial if the sides were level on points, O’Neill was content to protect a one-goal lead. Afterwards, having secured Celtic’s first win of the tournament, O’Neill would fancifully claim that Celtic were in with a “fighting chance”.
Little could have been further from the truth. The reality was that the Ukrainians would only need to match Celtic’s points total to go into the UEFA Cup and so Celtic’s chance of emulating the run of the previous season was virtually dead there and then.
Though it has rarely been said openly, there was room for strong suspicion that he had failed to fully understand the rules. Ultimately, that was all academic as Shakhtar defeated a greatly weakened Barcelona in the final game, having previously failed to score in any match other than Celtic’s visit to Ukraine.
Tonight, the difference in Celtic will not just be in personnel. Having learned and greatly improved since last season’s campaign, Gordon Strachan will be haunted by a statistic of his own – last season Celtic conceded nine goals in three away group fixtures. So it should surprise no-one if the approach will be very similar to that which secured a valuable score draw in Moscow just a few weeks ago.
Strachan’s critics have been muted in recent weeks, the team having delivered goals and excitement as well as points. But hopefully, they aren’t just waiting to wail about an opening Champions League performance that should focus on defending and, Strachan might feel, the duller the better..
With Celtic, Shakhtar, and Benfica unlikely to be separated by more than two points come the end of the group campaign, one point each in Donetsk and Lisbon would give Celtic a tremendous chance of qualifying from an extremely difficult group.
The energy and attacking instincts of Scott Brown, matched with the positional control of Massimo Donati, give Celtic the potential to gain control of the midfield. If they do so, the points will come, even against a club that spent £40m on players in the summer.
But, having come through the group stages for the first time last season and having overcome the most difficult qualifier imaginable against Spartak, Celtic have won a degree of respect that entitles the team to face the biggest challenges with justifiable confidence rather than fear or foolish expectation.
So now is the time for the players to show the world that Celtic are a side to be reckoned with. And the fans can learn to love, dull, boring football.
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