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'Ignominy in Almaty' - the reasons for Celtic's Champions League exit
Now that Celtic's doomsday scenario has come true - ignominy in Almaty - there should be a reappraisal of the club's most egregious and self-inflicted exits in Champions League qualifiers in the last dozen seasons or so.
Maribor, Malmo and AEK Athens. CFR Cluj, Ferencvaros and FC Midtjylland. All wounding, all the cause of introspection and fury.
Some of those clubs had a big claim on being the greatest European bogey that caused the most damage to Celtic and the delusions of grandeur they have of themselves as a great European club.
The immortals of 1967 and the atmosphere on Champions League nights continue to do some seriously heavy lifting on that front.
All of those Celtic conquerors were emphatically put in their place by Kairat Almaty on Tuesday night.
Brendan Rodgers has overseen some horror shows - seven-goal thrashings that made you hide behind the couch - but this was on another level. It was third-rate stuff, with apologies to third-rate.
Take those exits from the Champions League, multiply them by Rodgers' wretched defeats by Barcelona, Paris St-Germain, Atletico Madrid and Borussia Dortmund and still you do not hit the cringe factor of these ties against a Kairat side that a properly functioning Celtic would expect to beat.
No goal in 210 minutes of football, three missed penalties in the shootout and a couple of golden chances wasted across the two legs led to more than £40m wafting away in the air in Kazakhstan.
And, of course, the Champions League being swapped for the Europa League.
As failings go, this was a seismic one and in analysing who is at fault, there is a world of criticism for everybody.
This was a defeat for the collective - players, manager, board. They are all in the frame together. It was an illustration of a club gambling on progress by waiting for Champions League qualification to be secured before properly refreshing its squad.
It is a thunderous example of how they have allowed their standards to drop, on the pitch and off it. Not that many months ago, Celtic went toe-to-toe over two legs with the Bayern Munich of Manuel Neuer, Dayot Upamecano, Joshua Kimmich, Jamal Musiala, Harry Kane, Kingsley Coman and Thomas Muller.
In losing 3-2 on aggregate and coming within seconds of taking the Germans to extra time in their own backyard, Celtic had momentum, something to build on.
They also had a stack of money in the bank and a support, broadly, facing in the same direction as the board. There was relative harmony and positivity. A rare commodity in Glasgow.
Now there's bitterness and rancour. They have blown their feel-good factor sky high.
In two games t,he lack of ambition to improve the team has boomeranged back and hit the club squarely between the eyes. That is on the board of directors - chief among them, major shareholder Dermot Desmond.
The Irishman is immensely powerful at the club. Would it be too much for the fans to hope to hear from him from time to time? Could chief executive Michael Nicholson give a little insight on the vision?
It would not hurt and it might help explain how they have gone from the optimism of Bayern Munich to the humiliation of Kairat Almaty in six months.
The holes in the team have been obvious for a while. The need for new energy was clear. Somehow, Celtic entered the Champions League play-off round comprehensively weaker than last season.
Tuesday's failure is also on Rodgers. Celtic get love-bombed at home. Rodgers over-praises his team when they beat up on some domestic sides with a tiny fraction of their budget. Everybody swoons when they put four and five on weaker teams.
When they do a job on Rangers and win another league title to sit alongside all the other league titles, there is a feeling that nothing else matters. Progress in Europe? Yeah, that would be nice.
But keeping the Ibrox club in their box is the bread and butter. It's about ambition and the board's interpretation of what ambition looks like.
Celtic should be way, way beyond such parochial thinking. The allegation can be levelled at them, fairly or unfairly, of just wanting to stay a few steps ahead of their city rival.
Occasionally, at Rodgers' pleading, they'll push the boat out - Arne Engels, Adam Idah, Auston Trusty brought in at a cost of about £26m - but mostly it is steady as she goes. And it has worked if domestic dominance, player trading and money in the coffers is your ideal.
If trying to kick on from Bayern is more your bag - as is the case with Rodgers - then there is a problem. But Rodgers gets no free pass in all of this.
This is the flip-side of the argument. So many players from last season have gone backwards. Idah and Engels cannot even get in the team. Trusty would not have been in the team either had he been fit. These are Rodgers' signings.
The core of the team is still Ange Postecoglou's, because too many of the players Rodgers has recruited haven't done it as yet.
So, this exit is everybody's shambles. The leading narrative might be about the board not signing the players for the big push, but the board, if they were minded, could come back with a counter-argument about the value for money Rodgers' arrivals have provided so far. If he's not starting them, the answer right now is "not much".
It would not be unreasonable for them to say that they expected more. A win over Kairat or a goal or a semblance of cohesion over two legs. There is no contract offer on the table for the manager and so, as it stands, he is away next summer.
Maybe that outcome would suit both parties. Rodgers says there is no conflict between him and his board but his frustration has been obvious.
This is a knotted situation that could become even worse domestically if Rangers were not so hell-bent on raising the ante in the crisis stakes.
Celtic will likely win one, two and very possibly three trophies this season. If they do, the regrettable thing is that the lessons of Almaty could be lost.
The Old Firm are now in a ferocious battle with each other to determine who has the angriest fans. It is a colossal fight. Rangers have to play Brugge on Wednesday evening, already trailing 3-1 with the likelihood of more pain to come in Belgium.
Then the Glasgow Two meet at Ibrox on Sunday. Oxygen masks may be required.
Source: BBC
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