‘Outstanding’ Celtic have restored ‘European credibility’ – Rodgers
Video credit: Eurosport
Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers says he took “immense pride” in their Champions League defeat to Bayern Munich, after the Scottish champions suffered last-minute heartbreak at the Allianz Arena.
Celtic were seconds from sending the game to extra-time after Nicolas-Gerrit Kuhn put the Hoops ahead in the 63rd minute.
Kasper Schmeichel made an incredible nine saves to keep his side in it until the final moment. The Dane made a good stop on Leon Goretzka’s header but was unable to stop Davies beating Cameron Carter-Vickers to the ball and turning home from close range.
“I can only take immense pride from the performance. The guys gave everything,” Rodgers said.
“European credibility was always going to be important for us this season. That’s my takeaway from this campaign, from the 10 games. We learnt some valuable lessons, and we played some amazing football along the way.
“We’ve taken a club of this size and magnitude and a club where one of the players is maybe more than our budget.
“So, everything that comes with that, it allows us to build. Last year, I felt that we had developed, even though we never got the points. Performance-wise, it was good.
“I think this season has been very good. We’ve made the progress that made me want to come back.”
While Celtic’s Champions League journey for the season is over, supporters can be happy after witnessing the club reach their first European knockout game in 12 years.
They clinched key victories over the likes of RB Leipzig, Slovan Bratislava and Young Boys in the run-up to their Bayern clash.
It’s now back to domestic matters for Rodgers’ side, who hold a 13-point lead over Rangers in the Scottish Premiership, and are still in the hunt for the Scottish Cup.
“Now we’ve got to finish the season off strong,” he continued. “We’ve got two titles to go for, get into the Champions League next season, look to build the squad again.
“My unswerving plan is to make this a seasoned club at this level, where we can hurt big opponents like Bayern Munich.
“We’ll look back to the first game and those little details around the goals that we conceded.
“But I think it can give us nothing but confidence to show that the template I spoke about defensively was very good. We limited them to not so many chances.
“We looked dangerous when we had the ball, we had some real good opportunities. Going forward, we can take confidence from it and we can build the squad in order to be competitive at this level.”
Rodgers commented on a controversial moment in Munich where the visitors felt they should have been awarded a free-kick for Dayot Upamecano’s challenge on Daizen Maeda.
Upamecano appeared to make contact with the Japan forward’s face near his own box, but referee Benoti Bastien waved play on despite him going to ground.
The hosts ultimately scored in a subsequent phase of possession at the opposite end.
“That’s a little bit of our inexperience at this level,” Rodgers said. “Upamecano’s clever, he picks him up.
“It was a knock on the head. I felt the referee should have given the free-kick anyway or certainly stopped the game.
“Maybe a more experienced player or team might have stayed down and then the referee has to stop the game. But he didn’t, he played on and eventually they get the goal.
“We were disappointed that we obviously didn’t get that in the build-up.”
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