Celtic Fan View: Three things we learned from the Hapoel Be’er Sheva clash
Celtic blogger Ameen Rabbani on how the Bhoys rallied after throwing away a three-goal lead to stand on the verge of dining at Europe's biggest table.
Champions League football will be gracing Celtic Park once again. The Champions League anthem, the passionate rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone, the Paradise roar and the spine-tingling feeling is back. Three qualifying rounds, six matches, 540 minutes, millions of bitten nails and three years later, Celtic are back among Europe’s elite.
Tuesday night’s wretched display in Israel almost crushed that dream but the Bhoys held on by the skin of their teeth and can now watch Thursday’s group stage draw in anticipation of being pitted against one of the potential winners of the tournament.
It’s quite an achievement. Brendan Rodgers has passed his first assignment in such a short space of time even though his team, admittedly, stuttered on a few occasions along the way.
The Northern Irishman is the first manager in the club’s history to qualify for the competition at the first time of asking, which should give some perspective of the scale of this success.
It’s true that Celtic didn’t come up against world beaters during these qualifiers but they themselves are hardly known for being a force that should be feared these days.
Rodgers, therefore, deserves the plaudits that will come his way. He’s restored the confidence of the supporters and most importantly raised the spirits of a group of dejected players and added some maturity to their game.
They were hanging on for dear life against Hapoel Be’er Sheva, almost gasping for air but when the referee ended proceedings they could finally breathe a huge sigh of relief at the 2-0 defeat and 5-4 aggregate victory.
Dream on
How far Celtic go in the Champions League ultimately won’t define their season, but they needed this. Three years is a long time to wait for the Hoops faithful to wait for the magical nights under the floodlights and they’ve craved another major scalp to add to an already impressive list over the years.
On the pitch, bar an embarrassing defeat to Lincoln Red Imps in the opening qualifier, results have been positive and performances have been extremely encouraging. This wave of optimism would undoubtedly continue with Champions League qualification and now that the SPFL champions will be dining at the top table, it keeps the momentum and palpable excitement rolling on.
The damage in this play-off was done in the first leg with a 5-2 win, especially the first half which was the hallmark of Rodgers’ technical and tactical ideas for this team, carried out to perfection by players that looked lost not so long ago.
Scott Brown set the tempo, Scott Sinclair caused all sorts of panic and James Forrest created a goal, looking the most assured he’s been in years. That sort of form and high level of performance from individuals whose careers were stalling has been a standout feature at the start of this new campaign. Leigh Griffiths, meanwhile, has developed more facets to his game and has gone up another gear from last season. That has been Rodgers’ influence.
It’s hard not to consider whether they would have caved without this newfound belief that’s been instilled in them. Better Celtic teams than this have come so agonisingly close to major results but fallen at the last hurdle. Rodgers touched on this post-game saying there had been many “heroic failures” and “I think with past experiences that players have had, sometimes they know how it can map out”.
In the past two years, late goals have caused Celtic heartbreak at this stage against Maribor and Malmo. This time, while under severe pressure, Rodgers adjusted to a back five for the last 20 minutes and watched his team see the game out with more composure compared to the previous 70 minutes.
As Rodgers went on to say, the players “added an extra percent to their mentality.” His proactive decisions have proved fruitful on more than one occasion as well whether it be substitutions or tactical changes that have made the difference.
What this shambles of a 90 minutes on Tuesday did exhibit, though, is the unforgiving nature of European football. The tie should have been safe but Celtic showed that poor game management and low quality ball retention can put you in deep, deep trouble. As I mentioned in my post following the first leg, it’s been a trend for the Hoops to lose control of games which has been punished by Hearts, Astana and Be’er Sheva for a period in the second half last week.
Stat attack
The passing statistics from last night’s encounter are fairly damning in this respect. Celtic didn’t lose control here, they didn’t have any to begin with and with the inability to hold possession, pressure is only likely to reach your goal more frequently.
With 38% possession, the Glaswegians made 255 passes and completed just 158 compared to the opposition making 564 passes and completing 453. Celtic couldn’t make their way up the pitch for a sustained amount of time nor had the players to wrestle back control of the ball.
Hence the need for a ‘deep-lying playmaker’ who can carry out an orchestrating role in midfield. It seems Rodgers is searching for that player. The tabloid press have, in typical sensationalist fashion, linked the club with moves for veteran duo Xavi and Bastian Schweinsteiger, which have since been refuted but it’s along the right lines. With an influx of £20m, Rodgers could add that profile of player to his squad in the coming week.
The manager will be lucky to see a fifth of that sum for a new player, then again he did get this team to the Champions League proper primarily on team spirit. Money can’t buy that, nor the goosebumps on these nights in Glasgow’s east end.
