ANGE POSTECOGLOU says there is no glass ceiling on what his team can achieve in Europe, as the Celtic manager set a short-term target of remaining in continental competition beyond Christmas.
Postecoglou points to his own example as an Australian coach competing in the Champions League as proof that expectations can be defied in football, so he isn’t about to set any limitations on his ambitions for Celtic in the future despite disappointing results in this season’s group stage so far.
Postecoglou’s side face Shakhtar Donetsk at Celtic Park tonight knowing that only a win will keep their hopes of finishing third in Group F alive, and he hopes that they will be able to do so in order to maximise the valuable experience his men are picking up during this campaign.
He also believes though that no matter the outcome, the group stage can be deemed a success if they take the lessons from it while staying committed to their style of play.
“For me, it comes down to the approach,” Postecoglou said.
“You talk about glass ceilings, well, what are the chances of an Australian coach managing in the Champions League?
“I’ve broken through so many and I know that they don’t really exist, they only exist in your own ambitions, whether that is Europa League or Champions League.
“My thing is to say that if a football club of our size goes out there and plays football that everyone talks about, irrespective of the opposition, wouldn’t that be a great thing?
“A club like Celtic is playing the biggest clubs in the world and people are talking about how we are playing, I think there is something in that.
“With that, you obviously want success and you want to win games of football, but I think there is great merit in doing things that people don’t expect you to do, and why not for Scottish clubs? Why not for us? I see no reason why we can’t do it.
“It is important for us to try and qualify for a couple of reasons to the Europa – one, we couldn’t get our primary target and our second target is to play European football beyond January and we want to try and get that. It’s still a possibility, so why would we dismiss that?
“And, two, every time you do play in Europe there’s always a learning there, especially for our players. For a lot of them. For most of them this is their first real crack at European football and they’re doing it at Champions League level. They’re not being eased into it. They’ve being thrown in.
“I think they’ll be better footballers for it and the more we can stay in there the better.”
