Celtic 0- 5 Paris St Germain: Proud of my team in the soft power era. Yes, seriously!

Losing is never acceptable. When is a Celtic 5-0 home loss to Paris St Germain a matter for Pride?

They came, we all saw, we lost. But, in defeat, we remain “unconquered”.

What rambling nonsense is this?

Well, firstly, this blogger never accepts defeat, never mind emphatic losses, at Celtic Park of all places.

A year ago, we lost 7-0 in Barcelona, arguably a comparable scoreline, given that we were away from home then but, tonight, we were at the often-feared Celtic Park.

And yet, the performances were starkly contrasting. In the Camp Nou, our fledgling team seemed out of its depth, lacking confidence and, essentially, courage. But it was clear that we were on the beginning of a journey. We just didn’t know where we were going or how fast.

Tonight, we suffered a historic defeat. In no way could that scoreline be considered good enough. But it should not be seen as humiliating or embarrassing.

Make no mistake – the day we accept defeats as part of our story, we will be on the road to mediocrity. And that is somewhere no Celtic fan would be content to be.

On the other hand, tonight I saw the most expensive football team ever assembled playing brilliant, sometimes breathtakingly-good football, a team teeming with talent in every position, which often looked like their players were wearing magnetic boots while dealing with a light, ferrous ball.

PSG played a game that few of us will ever see in football. When the great Barcelona team played something comparable to that style, the football world Kowtowed in appreciation.

But, as media figures will emphasise, Celtic suffered the club’s worst home defeat in 100 years.

And yet, what I saw tonight was a team that played with the heart and courage that was so missing from the Camp Nou 12 months ago.

And a special mention for Anthony Ralston, who played like a lion.

I saw a team with real quality, going for it and maintaining a level of professionalism that the sports pages are unlikely to reflect tomorrow.

For those who may wonder what the headline refers to, “soft power” is considered the new, big thing in politics and international diplomacy. Crudely summarised, it is the understanding that internationally-prestigious events or media coverage have a major impact in raising the international standing of nations and other entities.

The oil-wealthy Qatari government that funds Paris St Germain may or may not see establishing footballing credibility in advance of the World Cup as being crucial to their international standing.

Should we expect similar support from the Scottish government for Celtic or prefer to field our green-and-white hoops for the traditions of our club, our supporters and our history?

I saw a still-improving team, led by coaches who understand our tradition, fighting for the club, with skill and courage, never accepting second-best.

Mistakes were made but I was – and am – proud of our players.

How about you?

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Celtic crushed in Catalonia. Disappointed – si! Despondent – no!

Sometimes you have to take your licks in football and tonight was one of those occasions.

Should we ever think that losing 7-0 is acceptable? Of course not.

Welcome to Catalonia: Thanks, I think.

But there are times to recognise the excellence of our opponents and to decline the invitation to panic.

Most Celtic fans had a gnawing suspicion that Barcelona could run run up several goals against us. We just hoped it wouldn't be too bad.

And while going into every match with the expectation of a chance of winning is what a top club should aspire to, it was difficult to see how we would prevent Messi, Neymar and Suarez from scoring, aided by the sheer mesmerising creativity of Iniesta and a host of other stars.

Simply, Scottish teams have had no difficulty in scoring against us and Hapoel Beer Sheva netter against us twice in both legs, so arguably the most potent strike force that football has ever seen always looked likely to score three or more.

That it was so many smarts, naturally, but how do we respond?

We can panic, start berating our players and choose despondency or we can take a broader perspective in our disappointment.

We have defensive shortcomings that have only partially been addressed, a dearth of players with top-level experience and a thin squad.

For some of those players, the size of the occasion appeared to be too much, which is no surprise when going a goal down within three minutes in the Camp Nou.

That exacerbated our problems as the tension showed in some of our passing with loose balls and a reluctance to commit to going forward exacerbating the pressure of a relentless Barcelona.

With one or two more years of experience, some of those passes would have been attacking and a little more accurate. That same hesitancy was also evident in some of the running, meaning that good possession was turned into more and more Barca pressure.

But this was quite literally the hardest task that football could offer and came at a very early stage in the Brendan Rodgers reign. It should also be noted that those squad shortcomings have been several years in the making.

Nevertheless, clear progress has been made.

We have some genuine young talent, a coaching team that understands what they have to do to make progress and – crucially – growing confidence in the squad.

And that confidence is what we must guard most preciously of all.

A result such as this could crush the confidence of some of these players and bring us right back to where we started on day one. Fans putting pressure on the team or coaching staff will only undermine our aspirations of improving.
So, however hard, let's take it, support the team and help them grow.

We have other hard tests ahead of us – and some key additions will be needed in the next transfer window – but there is more to come from this team and it can still make us proud.
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