THERE was a moment of class and technical brilliance during Tuesday night’s Champions League tussle between Celtic and Real Madrid that epitomised the mind-boggling standard that was on display. But it didn’t come from the magical feet of Luka Modric, or the twinkle toes of Vinicius Jnr.
Instead, it was Reo Hatate who had the Celtic Park crowd gaping in awe as he received a throw-in from Josip Juranovic, took the ball first-time on the volley without looking and raked an incredible cross-field pass right to the feet of Jota on the opposite flank.
It was an exhilarating snapshot of just what Hatate is capable of, the highlight of a first-half display that had him going toe-to-toe with the likes of Modric and Toni Kroos, and not looking one inch out of place.
The nous and downright genius of the Real Madrid superstars finally told in the end, but Hatate took more than lifelong memories from the night he went up against such generational talents. He also took with him lessons from the contest, and he is convinced he will be a better player for the experience.
“I cannot express with my words what that experience was like,” Hatate said.
“I tried a lot of things, and showed a little of what I can do, and I learned a lot of things from playing against players like that.
“I have to take as much out of this experience as I can and use that to improve as a player.
“I enjoyed it a lot. I felt excitement of course and I felt nervous, there were a lot of feelings at the start of the game.
“But I enjoyed the match a lot, and I feel like I am improving as a player.”
As well as being able to leave his own mark on the game, Hatate was buoyed by the fact that Celtic were able to impose themselves on such strong opposition for lengthy spells. The challenge now is to sustain those levels.
“We did manage to play our football, we wanted to play our own style, but in the end we couldn’t do that for the whole 90 minutes,” he said. “This is what we now need to work on.
“We have to accept the result and analyse what we can do to improve. But we have a lot of games still to play in this group, and now we have to recover, refresh and prepare for the game on Saturday.”
After that game against Livingston will come the next Champions League challenge against Shakhtar Donetsk in Warsaw next Wednesday, and Hatate says that the performance against Real Madrid has strengthened his conviction that Celtic can mount a serious challenge to qualify from Group F.
He also believes that the backing the Celtic supporters gave their team even in defeat on Tuesday evening will make the squad all the more determined to repay them by reaching the knock-out stages.
“Well, it all depends on us,” he said.
“We just have to prove to everyone and show that we are a good team, and that we can do it.
“I really appreciate all of the supporters, because they received us very well on Tuesday night, and even after the game too.
“We didn’t manage to get the result we wanted to give them, but we will work harder than ever to give something back to our supporters.”
