If Celtic have been keen to frame their Champions League campaign as an extended learning exercise, then they now face a heck of a final examination. Though, they will hope of course that their trip to face Bayern Munich does not in fact mark the end of their journey in the competition.
Daizen Maeda’s late goal at Celtic Park last week to keep the Scottish champions within touching distance of their star-studded opponents gives them that sliver of hope, and was a just reward for a more than creditable performance over the piece, and a particularly impressive closing to the game as Brendan Rodgers’ men found a way to get up the pitch and rattle the previously unflappable Germans - at least a little.
Celtic captain Callum McGregor knows that there aren’t many people outside of his own dressing room who give his side an earthly to overcome that deficit, and that it will take a monumental performance for them to do so.
Better, perhaps, than any other across his previous 504 appearances for the club.
“Yeah, I think so,” McGregor said.
“I think we have to max out in terms of performance level, and there's no reason why we can't.
“It would be brilliant obviously [to qualify] and that's the aim now, the next two days we recover, and we have full focus and full energy going into that game.
“I want us to come off with no regrets and see where we can get to.”
McGregor said last week that he felt Celtic probably had to win the first leg in Glasgow against Bayern to have any hope of upsetting the odds over the tie, but he was encouraged by what he saw in that last quarter of the match at Celtic Park, so much so that he has revised that opinion.
“We're still right in the game,” he said.
“Obviously when you get to these games, everybody's got to believe that you can win the game.
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“And even the way the game played out, there were very small margins in terms of the game, and on another night, with a different referee, who knows, you know?
“So, the number one aspect was that the performance was there, we're still in the game, and I think if one of the big teams loses 2-1 away from home, then everybody still thinks they're in the tie, so I don't see any reason why we shouldn’t feel that way.
“And especially the last 25 minutes, that gives us a good template for the game, if we can change the momentum of the game, and have a wee bit more of the ball, and make them defend, then you see that we could be good in the game.
“So, that has to be the mindset for the players now, to recover, and then when we arrive into Tuesday night, we give it absolutely everything we've got, and we leave nothing on the pitch, and see where we go.”
Part of the learning curve for Celtic this season in Europe has been a realisation that they sometimes have to, in McGregor’s words, ‘take their medicine’. A reminder of which was dished out in brutal fashion by Borussia Dortmund when they last travelled to Germany.
The goalless draw that followed in Bergamo against Atalanta and the disciplined display on the whole against Bayern – save for the defensive lapse to allow Harry Kane to score his side’s second on the night – showed that there are more strings to Celtic’s bow than the all-out attack that is the hallmark of their domestic approach.
For McGregor, that ability to stay in shape and to suffer has been a key to the success they have had since that bruising night at the Signal Iduna Park, and will inform their approach to the game at the Allianz Arena.
“I think against the really top teams with big quality and speed as well, sometimes you can't press every single pass, because if you do, you just open up and give yourself too much work, and the players have too much quality and too much speed at the top end of the pitch,” he said.
“You give them half a yard and you're in trouble, so sometimes you have to sacrifice an area of the pitch where it's ‘okay, you can have the ball there, you're not going to score from there’, and then you work your way across the pitch and try and press and lock half the pitch off and try and press in an area where you actually have the advantage.
“So, I think the Dortmund game was an eye-opener in terms of if you have a poorer performance and the team that you're playing against max out with that quality, you can get hit for seven, and nobody wants that.
“So, you have to take your medicine a little bit when you play at this level, and you need to give yourself the advantage of pressing in certain areas of the pitch and that's where we've been really good.
“They understand the game, and that's what's great about working at this level, everybody's super tuned in and trying to learn and understand the highest level of European football, so it's good.
“I think the big thing is that we don't concede early, and sort of lose the tie from that, so the players understand where the game is, where it balances, and how good we need to be to progress.
“It's a big ask, but you know, if anyone can do it, then this group of players can.”
