SNS GroupMinutes after the full-time whistle had blown on Celtic’s 5-1 demolition of Slovan Bratislava, Brendan Rodgers was quick with a quip as he addressed the assembled media.
Noting that the result put Celtic second in the new-look League Phase table after just one matchday, he joked “The competition stops now. We play Bayern Munich in the final.”
UEFA didn’t reshape their elite competition into a de facto ‘Super League’ just to bring things to a halt after one round of games, but Rodgers and his players do at least get to face crack Bundesliga opponents as they return to continental action.
After picking apart one of the bottom seeds in the shape of Slovan, Celtic now face a side from the top pot when they take on Borussia Dortmund at Signal Iduna Park.
While the Scottish champions are aiming to improve their showing in the competition, Dortmund will have a hard job following last season’s efforts.
The Germans reached the final and were only beaten by two goals from Real Madrid late in the second half. The campaign started with bettering Paris Saint-Germain, Newcastle United and Milan in the group stage, continued with a victory over PSV Eindhoven in the last 16, a thrilling 5-4 win over Atletico in the quarters and home and away wins over PSG when they met again in the final four.
That run was followed by an opening day win at Club Brugge in this year’s competition but it’s been far from a smooth transition from one campaign to the next.
Manager Edin Terzic sensationally quit the club two weeks after the Champions League final, with stories circling about bust-ups with senior players and the coach saying Dortmund’s “new era” should begin with a new boss.
SNS GroupFormer Dortmund star Nuri Sahin got the job, stepping up from the assistant manager position. The club hailed his “natural authority and expertise” and said he knew what the team needed to work on.
The summer window brought more change than just in the manager’s office. Club legend Mats Hummels departed after 13 years, while strikers Sebastian Haller and Nicolas Fullkrug both moved on. Marco Reus, who had lost his place in the team under Terzic, headed to MLS.
Forwards Maximilian Beier and Serhou Guirassy were brought in from Hoffenheim and Stuttgart respectively, with Guirassy already having scored four goals in four games.
Waldemar Anton also made a move from Stuttgart, stepping straight into the heart of defence, and midfield schemer Pascal Gross arrived from Brighton and Hove Albion.
Man City loanee Yan Couto was another notable signing as the team freshened up for the challenges ahead.
So far, results have been good overall but there are still signs that the team is far from finding their groove.
The team currently sit fifth in the Bundesliga with ten points from five games but there has been inconsistency across the early stretch of the season. An unbeaten start came crashing to an end when the team were thumped 5-1 away to Stuttgart four days after defeating Club Brugge, while Friday’s 4-2 win over Bochum came after the visitors had raced into a two-goal lead.
After that match Emre Can said that the team had to be “honest” and learn that they had to be “present from the very first minute”. The captain said that slow starts were happening “far too often” but looked on the side’s strength of character as a bright side.
Sahin also talked about taking on lessons, observing that “Sometimes one has to suffer in order to learn”. It would be safe to assume that behind closed doors he’s telling his side that they have to learn before facing the pace of Daizen Maeda and Kyogo Furuhashi on Tuesday night.
There was another concern for Sahin from the game as winger Jamie Gittens came off injured and it’s not clear if he will be fit to face Celtic. Marcel Sabitzer missed the Bochum game and is another who will have to prove his readiness.
SNS GroupAhead of the Slovan match, Rodgers said he had never felt as ready for a European campaign in his time at Celtic. Two weeks later, with three wins and sixteen more goals celebrated, he says his side are in “a good place” and it’s understatement if anything.
Celtic have won every game they’ve played this season, are finding goals easy to come by and they’ve only conceded in one match so far. Summer signings have made their mark, confidence is high and the team is settled, with Cameron Carter-Vickers’ absence the only injury blow.
Even setting aside Dortmund’s pedigree, stars and form, the task ahead of the team is a formidable one. Celtic have only won one of their last 11 away fixtures in Europe and have never won a game in Germany.
Speaking at Signal Iduna Park on Monday, Rodgers struck a careful balance between confidence and realism.
The manager spoke convincingly about how work done in the summer had led to an improvement in the team and had the players better prepared to perform at the elite level.
The Northern Irishman has also spoken about how this season was about stepping up from “participating” in the Champions League to being truly competitive in the games they play. Despite the confident mood around the camp, Rodgers isn’t expecting a series of wins against the biggest names in the game.
He stressed on Monday that he wasn’t looking for “perfection” but for his side to be “really, really difficult to play against”. He said that regardless of the result in Dortmund he would be looking at the campaign as being two games into an eight-game phase.
Victory in Dortmund would be a huge step forward for the Scottish champions, the kind of result captain Callum McGregor referred to as “sending shockwaves through the competition”.
A draw would maintain the team’s unbeaten start to the campaign and represent a significant achievement in itself.
But as the team prepare to step out into one of Europe’s best arenas and face the noise of the ‘Yellow Wall’, Rodgers will be hoping for something special but expecting at the very least a performance that underlines the progress he feels is being made, and serves notice that Celtic are now ready to compete against Europe’s elite.
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