Brendan Rodgers still striving for pass marks in Europe as improving Celtic aim to hold their own amongst elite
When Celtic passed the ball with a lack of precision against Aberdeen, the only punishment was a yellow card, earned in exasperation, for Brendan Rodgers.
In the killing fields of the Champions League, against Bundesliga opposition such as Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig, loose and slack football is punished with a clinical brutality.
A bruising seven-goal defeat to BvB on matchday two was laced with individual and collective errors, after which Rodgers faced calls to adopt a more pragmatic attitude to European football.
In football, as in life, pragmatism comes in different shapes and forms. There’s nothing in a coaching manual which says it has to be a backs-to-the-wall exercise in grim, dogged survival.
Resisting the urge to park the team bus on the 18-yard line in Atalanta’s Gewiss Stadium, Rodgers asked his players to exorcise the trauma of the previous game by protecting and passing the ball quicker and better. Riding their luck at times, a scoreless draw in Italy set the template for how it needs to be in the Champions League. How it needs to be, full stop.
‘For me, that’s how you defend,’ he explained. ‘You can defend better and that’s the link to me getting booked at the weekend.’
Rodgers is encouraging his Celtic players to pass and protect the ball better, especially in Europe
The Celtic manager slipped after booting the ball away in frustration at Hampden on Saturday
RB Leipzig manager Marco Rose says Celtic have individual quality and a clear way of playing
Rodgers fell flat on his bahookie after booting the ball back on the pitch in protest at his team’s loose passing against Aberdeen. While insult was added to embarrassment when he earned a yellow card for his trouble, it’s a point he’ll reinforce before facing a multi-talented Leipzig team.
‘You’re losing your pass and domestically, we might not get punished,’ he added. ‘But at this level, you will do.
‘So, be clean, be precise, play with speed on the ball.
‘I think this team is improving in many ways. I see that defensive side, the pressing, everything. Absolutely.
‘But with the ball, I think we’re developing in our organised possession. In our counter-attacks, we scored two of our three goals in the first half. In counter-attack moments where we’re breaking away from pressure, we’re improving in set-pieces.
‘Like I said, organised possession. We’re getting better and this is what you need to be good at at this level to get results.’
Leipzig’s pointless state after three games is deceptive. Three narrow defeats to Atletico Madrid, Juventus and Liverpool tell an incomplete story. Against Juve, in particular, they were desperately unlucky to lose a late goal.
Leipzig see Glasgow as a chance to get their campaign back on track, buoyed by memories of 2022 when Marco Rose took over as coach and delivered back-to-back wins in the Europa League.
‘Celtic are in good shape,’ said Rose on his return to Parkhead last night. ‘It’s a good team with a good plan.
‘They have a clear idea of football and possession and quick players on the wings.
‘They have individual quality. They are a Champions League team.
‘I watched the games (against Dortmund and Atalanta) to get a feeling for the tactics and the players. And, again, it’s a top team with top players.
‘Some of them I already know because I was here a couple of years ago.
‘They still play here, so we know what we face already.’
Striker Andre Silva has branded the game against Celtic a ‘cup final’ and Rodgers believes the cap fits for both teams.
‘I mentioned that right at the beginning of this competition to our players. We have eight finals to see if we can get into that play-off stage,’ he said.
‘Leipzig had tough games. They’ll obviously be disappointed with the Juve game where they were at home and they lost a man and lost the game.
‘But of course, you come into this fourth game, and they’ll be obviously desperate to get points on the board. But thankfully, we are too. And that should mean a really, really fantastic game.’
Armed with the best defensive record in the Bundesliga — they lost two goals in Dortmund rather than seven — Leipzig will be a tough nut to crack.
Preaching the need for patience and precision, Rodgers hopes for a repeat of September 2018 when a 2-1 win over the same opponents marked one of the European high points of his two spells as manager.
Rodgers said: ‘Yeah, I think to win a game at this level, you have to bring your A-game to it. I thought that night we were excellent, the intensity of our game, the pressure we had in the game.
‘Of course, you have to ride your luck at times as well. That’s the level. But no, I thought our intensity, our pressing, our football was very good on that evening.
‘At this level, you have to be near-perfect to get a big result.’
After 10 years without a home win in the Champions League, Celtic now have the chance to make it three-in-a-row. While Feyenoord was a dead rubber and Slovan Bratislava a walk in the park, beating Leipzig would be the most significant by some distance. Seven points from four games would take the Parkhead side tantalisingly close to the magic mark of 10 points, expected to secure a place in the top 24 of the new one-group stage.
‘I think what is important is to have a good mood,’ adds Rodgers. ‘And I think the mood is great at the moment.
‘Feyenoord and Bratislava were two really good games. The Bratislava win to get us off to a really good start in the competition and now we play against a really, really top team on the back end. We have a good result and a fantastic result.
‘Let’s see if we can keep this mood going and keep that feeling going.’
