In a word, the Celtics were soft.
Many goals originated from players losing possession of the plot. Daizen Maeda did this; Alastair Johnson did it; The Austin trustee did this. In the lead up to the seventh goal three different Celtic players did so within seconds of each other.
Rodgers called it the “acid test”. “For us, it’s about taking our game to the next level,” he said on the eve of the match.
Of course, he didn’t specify what direction he was thinking about when he talked about the next level. Up or down?
Dortmund would have taken note of Rodgers’ fighting talk about how good the team was in (he didn’t mean Dortmund) and how he knew his mentality was to “hurt teams”.
Based on weekly routing of clubs with a small percentage of their budget. Weak evidence that he chose the interpretation as compelling. again.
It was a huge humiliation for Celtic, a team who once again fell into the trap of believing that just because you can play freewheeling football against St Johnstone in Perth on Saturday, it means you can play against Borussia Dortmund. They may try to do the same against others also. Tuesday
Practicality? Closing locations? Staying in the fight? Keeping it tight and compact in the face of Dortmund’s obvious pace and threat? No. No. They prepared just like they did against St Johnstone and Falkirk and Hibs and Rangers.
They thought they could go toe-to-toe with Dortmund because that’s what they do in Scotland and have rivals fall at their dancing feet. They were quite optimistic about their readiness to transfer domestic superiority to the unforgiving regions of Europe. They are nowhere near.
Unless Rodgers introduces some exaggerated realism when playing some of Europe’s best, this is likely to continue. If he does not change his ways they will be another conspirator.