Why are Celtic bricking it? Young Boys are Champions League’s worst team

Andy Bollen
Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers
Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers

Celtic sit on the threshold of Champions League glory ahead of Wednesday’s clash with Young Boys of Berne. Victory will mark the first time the Glasgow giants, the first British side to win the European Cup, have reached the latter stages of the revamped competition in 13 years.

Such has been the disparity in budgets that Celtic have struggled to make it past the group phase of the Champions League. But in recent years, due to some nurturing – academy product Kieran Tierney moved to Arsenal for a reported £25m – and meticulous scouting of players like Jota and Matt O’Riley, who have been moved on for significant profit, things are changing. Brendan Rodgers has been allowed to bring in more expensive and better-quality projects.

Jota broke many hearts, not least his own when he moved to Al-Ittihad for £25m to play alongside Karim Benzema and N’Golo Kante. Celtic paid Benfica just £6m for the winger. O’Riley was brought in for £1.5m from MK Dons and sold for £26m (plus £4m in add-ons) to Brighton. Now Celtic and Rodgers can afford to pay an astonishing £11m for Belgian Arne Engels, signed from Augsburg and the German winger Nicolas Kühn, brought in for just £3m. Both look like £40m players and tonight’s game against Young Boys is the ideal platform. More importantly, Celtic now look equipped to challenge on Europe’s biggest stage.

The season-defining game against Young Boys of Berne would secure a qualifying match in the knockout stage. The club is sitting on nine points and a win would guarantee a knockout play-off encounter in February. Brendan Rodgers is about detail, and continual improvement. If Celtic manage to get out of the group phase, for the fans it will be like a cup final win.

There has been an unusual apprehension around the club ahead of the game, with the players looking nervous and Rodgers uncharacteristically tetchy. He needlessly picked a fight with some of the support, having a go at fans for singing Kieran Tierney’s name and disrespecting current left-back Greg Taylor.

“There were a few things that I may have overheard at the end there. That’s a total lack of respect. Greg Taylor has been absolutely amazing at this club. How does he feel? He nearly breaks his nose there, bleeding for the club, for a cause.” The Celtic boss continued, “It’s not very respectful. You sing for another player no matter what Kieran’s history is. I don’t like that.”

Taylor may still secure a place in the team with the expected Tierney deal close to completion. Rodgers deploys a Cruyff-styled Total Football (at least a Scottish/Keystone Cops version), with a sweeper-keeper playing out from the back. Taylor often starts from defence, links up well, moves into the central or inside-left position, and is frequently the final link for many moves leading to Celtic’s goals.

Tierney’s game is more old-school defending and pumping down the wing. It’s a problem easily solved if he slips into the centre, playing the position he does for Scotland on the left of central defence and edging out Auston Trusty. Tierney couldn’t play as Taylor does. But this switch might appease the vast section of the support keen on his return. Tierney is ‘one of their own’, a supporter who came through the youth system.

So why this nervousness around the club? Young Boys have still to register a win in six CL games and are statistically the worst team in the competition – sitting in 36th place. They are without key players, and their recently appointed manager Giorgio Contini’s first game on Saturday was a goalless draw against Winterthur, the bottom side in the Swiss Super League.

Usually, that’s when Celtic become adept sharpshooting experts and administer gunfire to their own feet. The much-hackneyed cliché involving a discarded skin from an elongated yellow fruit springs to mind.

Andy Bollen is the author of Classic derbies and epic rivalries; buy it here