European ambitions can keep Brendan Rodgers at Celtic

Q: Did you ever worry just after that Dortmund game? You could imagine the wheels come off, you sort of panic, players lose their confidence, lose their nerve. But they didn’t do that, I’m sure they took lessons from that?

Brendan Rodgers: “Yeah, I think in moments like that, it’s like in life the same isn’t it? It’s when you know it’s coming, it’s one of the things you can anticipate in your life, the sun doesn’t shine every day for you so it’s always how you react and how you recover from the setback. So after that game it was a bruising night for us but I think we showed and I said at the time it was a bit of a freak result because the nature of every shot they had went in and everything went for them.

“I think we’ve proven that over 10 games that that was that but you still at that time have to come back from it and the players did that and they rallied around. It wasn’t a nice evening to experience but I know through my experience in life and football that it’ll be a great measure for us and the next game we come back, we won, we got there in the end and then we were able to grow from that.”

Q: How important is it to recognise moments like Bayern to take the sting out of the pain and the loss and let the guys reflect on what’s been a very good campaign?

Brendan Rodgers: “Yeah because they very rarely get the chance to do that, very rarely get the chance. Don’t worry it wasn’t a typical Scottish night, it wasn’t what you would consider, it was a nice relaxed beer and wine and then we trained the next day, stayed overnight, trained the next day and getting ready for Hibs. It’s very important that you can just reflect a little bit and relax and think about the moments within the game and the performance but very quickly you have to move on.”

Q: What about the nerve that the players showed to play the way you asked them to play, even just going back to the first leg, maybe the first 50-60 minutes Bayern had a lot of the ball, you came through it during that game and then to go to Bayern and show that you could play the ball around the way you did as well, is that the sort of thing that can accelerate the team’s confidence that they’ve come through that?

Brendan Rodgers: “Yeah well I think from a tactical perspective the players were outstanding, like I said before the first game we need to make sure we’re alive in the tie. You can play at home and go home and then you’re 3-0 down, 4-0 down and you’re playing your second leg and you’re virtually out of the tie. So for us it was really important to make sure with our level of quality that we’re in the tie, we had moments and then we were able to then in the last 25-30 minutes of the game then go and really push and then that gives you the confidence then going into the second leg that we can go.

“I’ve always said here I was looking to build a team that had power, had pace, had creativity, had unpredictability and also can go into any arena in the world and play our game and the players showed no better example of that than on Tuesday evening.”

Q: I know you spoke to Martin O’Neill and Neil Lennon immediately after the game but can you give us a flavour of the sort of reaction you’ve had on your phone, people you know in the game getting in touch to talk to you about that respect that you talk about yourself that you’ve brought back?

Brendan Rodgers: “Obviously the performance merited that and what the players gave so yeah obviously a lot of nice things said and compliments which is great and will give us again like I said the feeling going forward that we can push on. We always respect everything that comes our way when people recognise a performance at that level but like I say it’s in the past now.”

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