Brendan Rodgers believes that a 7-1 hammering in Dortmund was the trampoline moment for his team.
After beating Slovan Bratislava 5-1 in the Champions League opener the hoops travelled to Germany on the back of a 6-0 win away to St Johnstone.
There is absolutely nothing that the Perth side have in common with the Champions League finalists but there were some grounds to believe that Celtic could take something from The Yellow Wall.
They certainly did, a hammering. After 10 minutes it was clear that the visitors were wide open, at half-time they trailed 5-1 as fans scanned their memory banks fearing a record scoreline.
It seemed that all of the early season momentum had been wiped out, it was back to square one trapped by being miles ahead domestically but being equally adrift of being competent and respected in Europe.
Rodgers took a pounding, he was ridiculed for vowing to stick by his methods, Atalanta away was the last place that you wanted to go to to rebuild fragile confidence.
Somehow Celtic turned it, a win tonight in Matchday 5 would almost certainly guarantee a Play Off place in the Round of 16 with three more matches to push the bar higher.
It’s something that you have to experience. I think that’s what is key, is that failure is a part of the journey.
I said it at the time, and it was probably looked at a bit funny, but it can be that trampoline effect and it can bounce you back even higher. It’s how you deal with it which is important.
So dealing with the setback that we had that night, you can see where it’s trampolined the players and bounced them forward.
This team have shown that and proven that and I believe there’s still a lot more to come.
Rodgers added:
I think my own expectation is that I have that belief that we can come in and perform. And I think the players believe that as well but we have the humility to understand that you have to really work at this level.
But I think I see that in the team anyway. We’ve played 19 games this season, won 16, drew two and lost one to a Champions League finalist.
So that tells me that the mentality in the team is there, the spirit in the team is there, the grit in the team is there and that we’ll never quit in a game.
So that always gives you confidence as a manager that you’re going to go into these games and perform. That’s what we want to do.
We want to make it really, really difficult for teams to play against us and we know that we’re going to have to suffer at times, but that’s the level.
But I’m really excited again about coming to Celtic Park and seeing the game tomorrow evening.
In a fortnight Celtic travel to Dinamo Zagreb then get a month off from Champions League duty before completing the group stage at home to YB Berne followed by a trip to Aston Villa.
