VINCENT Kompany tonight expressed satisfaction at the 2-1 win his Bayern Munich side recorded against Celtic at Parkhead – a stadium which he claimed “transcends performance”.
The German giants defeated their Scottish opponents in the first leg of the Champions League knockout round play-off thanks to a first half goal from Michael Olise and a Harry Kane strike in the second.
Kompany has sampled the unique atmosphere that is generated at the world-famous Glasgow ground in the past as a player and he was pleased that his charges dealt with the noise generated by the home support.
However, the Belgian great, whose team will host Brendan Rodgers’ side at the Allianz Arena in the rematch next Tuesday night, stressed that Bayern’s place in the last 16 is far from assured.
“It is cliched to say, but it is the first half of the game,” he said. “Overall, I think it is a really good result. I don’t think fans have seen many losses, especially at this place. We are at home now and we will look to play on that.
“I know this place. I know it transcends performance sometimes. I thought we dealt really well with it for long spells of the game. We didn’t go crazy. Then in the last 10 minutes we defended well.
“But I felt we did well for long, long spells. We don’t take it for granted, it is not easy. In the end, sometimes you have to defend. In general we did enough to deserve the win and to put ourselves in a decent position at the end of the first half of this game. In the end, we can draw on a lot of experience in the team.
“There was a big difference between today and the first time I came here (with Anderlecht in 2003). The difference being we got battered that day. There was a real party atmosphere. Today we did well to not concede momentum. This place is very hard to explain, but they have something special.”
Kompany, whose team now face defending German champions Bayer Leverkusen in a massive Bundesliga match on Saturday, was pleased to see England captain Kane take his tally for the 2024/25 campaign to 29.
“He has improved a lot since I played against him, when he was already a top striker,” he said. “I see the reason why. He has got something special in front of goal, he is quite relentless with it.”
