Ange Postecoglou will lead his Celtic team out in the hope of winning his third trophy as Hoops manager on Sunday afternoon against Rangers - and he will be counting on the steely presence of captain Callum McGregor.
Having won a Scottish League Cup and Scottish Premiership double last season, Postecoglou's men are in the hat to win the former once more after beating Ross County, Motherwell and Kilmarnock en-route to the final. But they face the biggest test of all as they take on a resurgent Rangers side in a derby head-to-head, with the Light Blues yet to lose in their 14 matches under new boss Michael Beale.
Experience and grit will go a long way in deciding who will climb the Hampden Park stairs to lift the famous trophy at the weekend, with leaders bound to be factors in a game of high emotion. Speaking to Celtic TV, former Hoops defenders and current 'B' team coaches Darren O'Dea and Stephen McManus sat down to discuss the derby game. Captain McGregor is pointed as a key asset due to his ability to remove emotion from proceedings
Ex-Celtic skipper McManus said: "Everybody feels that the emotion takes over because that is what the fans feel, everybody is super excited. They're charged up, revved up, but as players and coaches you probably go the other way.
"You need to then take the emotion out of it and calm everybody down. That's even when you look at your first team now, there's not a better player or person at the football club than Callum [McGregor].
"He has that presence, he brings a calmness to everybody else and these are the characters you need if you're going to play in these big games. If the emotion becomes too much - you work so hard during the week for that moment - and if you then become too emotional and you don't perform it feels as though you've let everybody down.
"That was the same [for me], so for us, Gordon [Strachan] was always relatively calm. He was always keeping us to more of a calming influence.
"Don't get me wrong, he could blow his top the same as what you would imagine. But for everybody else it was about thinking clear and being focused on your job before the big game."
