BBC Scotland Sets the Tone for Celtic's Champions League Clash

Jonathan Sutherland of BBC Scotland set the downbeat tone for Brendan Rodgers’ pre-match media conference to discuss the Champions League tie against YB Bern.

First up he was asking if Wednesday’s match was one that ‘you really have to win’.

Every match Celtic have to win, even more so in Europe but clearly there was something in Sutherland’s mind that a win didn’t matter so much.

Rodgers seemed a little taken aback about such a flippant opening question but provided a diplomatic answer to get the media conference moving in a more positive direction.

Perhaps Sutherland had better things to do than get the first questions in to the home manager for the biggest football match in Scotland this year. Maybe he was just miffed about getting the short straw while Kenny Macintyre and Alasdair Lamont and a cast of dozens prepare for a few nights on expenses down in Manchester.

For his third question the BBC Scotland presenter decided to question Rodgers about the nervousness of supporters.

Excitement has the upper hand on nervousness among fans, they’ve watched their side take seven points from three home matches in the Champions League this season. YB is the bonus match from the new format that 99.9% of Celtic fans have enjoyed.

Nerves probably only comes from Sutherland and his BBC colleagues as they fear further success at Celtic that they are obliged to cover.

With his final question Sutherland asked for a reaction to the apparent drop in standards in Celtic’s last two Champions League matches.

Any Scottish club drawing with Club Brugge and Dinamo Zagreb deserves great credit, three seasons ago the only other Scottish club to participate in the Champions League picked up zero points from six matches, exiting the competition as the worst team ever to turn up, a record that can’t be broken.

SUTHERLAND: Hi Brendan, em, good afternoon, what are you feeling about this game, tomorrow, is it a game you really have to win?

RODGERS: Well we want to win it, that’s for sure. It’s a game we’re really excited about. The Champions League story so far has been in the main really good for us and especially at home, so we’re excited about the challenge of it.

SUTHERLAND: Yeah, eh, Callum spoke quite a lot about how he expects Young Boys to approach this game a bit differently from other teams you’ve played so far in the campaign. How do you see that?

RODGERS: Well I think it’s a team that obviously, you have to respect every team at this level, I know there’s lots of noise around them and where they are at., But they’re a team that won the Swiss League last season, and obviously it hasn’t gone so well for them this season.

They’re on the third manager now. The games that we’ve watched, they are what you’d expect a team of this level to have – athletic ability and quality. But really the focus has to be very much on ourselves, so we will respect the opponent, but for us, we want to really press and continually attack the game for 90 plus minutes. And if we can do that, and get that special feeling that comes with that type of performance in this arena, then it can be a great night for us but as I said we always have to respect how every team is set up and the qualities that they have, and that’s why they’re in the competition.

SUTHERLAND: Given what’s at stake tomorrow night, do you expect maybe a wee bit of nervousness, perhaps not from the players, but from the supporters?

RODGERS: Well that’s up to us. We’ve played here and some really good games this season, and the supporters have been absolutely fantastic. I think what is important is that, the classic example is the Brugge game, probably the feeling can be that you’re playing Red Bull Leipzig, so you may be feeling a little bit of the underdog, so there’s that push to get you over the line.

We can’t not think it’s any different just because we’re playing Young Boys. We saw with Brugge that they have a very, very good side, more experience in the Champions League than ourselves in recent history, and had some very good players.

So I think it’s about creating the environment and the ambience to really push the players, but like I say, it’s up to us in the game to really go and play with that speed and quality that we’ve shown at this level, especially at home.

SUTHERLAND: You mentioned the Leipzig game there, probably one of the high points in recent years for Celtic, but then in the last two European matches you haven’t quite managed to create as many chances, would that be fair to say?

RODGERS: Yeah, it’s the Champions League. What happened versus Brugge was, as I said, a really good reaction in the second half, we were second best in the first half, but the players dug deep and came back and could have easily won the game in the second half.

FINISHES!

Fortunately that was the final question from the BBC reporter, since Rodgers returned as Celtic manager in June 2023 the state broadcaster hasn’t been invited to domestic media conferences, with a UEFA contract they have access to pre and post match Champions League conferences.

Tuesday’s match will be shown live by TNT Sport with BBC Scotland reduced to radio commentary for the minority who don’t have access to television coverage.