Unique Angle as the Spirit of Ange lives on

Two years ago Ange Postecoglou introduced a new catch-phrase to Lennoxtown as he imposed himself on a skeleton Celtic squad.

At that time Alexandro Bernabei was far, far away in Argentina while Brendan Rodgers was enjoying the acclaim of winning the FA Cup for Leicester City.

Today in the unlikely location of Osaka, Japan the hoops enjoyed another benefit of the mantra We Never Stop.

Postecoglou wasn’t the first coach to insist on his players pushing all the way to the 90th minute and beyond with late winning goals a regular feature of Celtic’s storied history.

Pre-season matches rarely last in the memory, today’s outing won’t be any exception but it did produce a fairly memorable winning goal.

For whatever reason Bernabei found himself on the right wing, with five minutes left to play his attempt at a defence splitting pass went badly wrong but there was one solution on hand- chase after it.

A harassed Gamba Osaka defender played the ball back to his goalkeeper, Benabei continued the chase. When the keeper took a poor first touch the Celtic defender pounced, held off another touch from the keeper then turned the ball into the net.

We Never Stop.

CELTIC 1ST HALF: Hart; Iwata, Welsh, Starfelt, Taylor; Hatate, McGregor, Turnbull; Abada, Forrest, Maeda.

CELTIC 2ND HALF: Siegriest; McPherson (Summers 90), Lawal, Scales, Bernabei; Holm, O’Riley; Haksabanovic, Vata, Kyogo, Oh

UNUSED: Bain, Kelly