So Piers Morgan was right.
On Tuesday morning, the controversial TV presenter loudly proclaimed Celtic were in for a hammering against Barcelona. He copped some flak for it but not as much as Celtic.
Brendan Rodgers’ men shipped seven goals and scored none in return. Their 7-0 Champions League loss is their worst ever defeat in Europe.
After the match, perhaps wary of the five group games to go, Rodgers refused to get too down on his men. He pointed to Moussa Dembele’s penalty miss, which would have made it 1-1, as ‘a massive moment’.
But miss Dembele did and Barca made the Scots pay dearly. Lionel Messi helped himself to a hat-trick and Luis Suarez chipped in with two.
“The last 15 minutes felt quite long,” Rodgers admitted. “The young players will learn from it.”
Saturday’s 5-1 romp over Rangers was not the best of preparation “to face a team who beat you up with the ball at times”.
Rodgers then claimed there was no shame losing to the La Liga champions despite the horrific scoreline after 90 minutes. He said:
“This is a competition which is going to be a brilliant learning season for us. Tonight is one of those nights you have to take.
“There can be no embarrassment because they have done it to better teams than ourselves.”
True, Barcelona did trounce Gary Neville’s Valencia 7-0 last season. 7-0, however, is their largest score in the Champions League and their list of other record victories are hardly against behemoths of the game.
Biggest La Liga home win: 10-1 vs. Gimnà stic Tarragona (1949)
Biggest cup victory at home: 10-1 vs. Basconia (1962)
Biggest friendly win: 20-1 vs. Smilde (1992)
Biggest win in Europe: 8-0 vs. Apollon Limassol (1982) & 8-0 vs. Matador Púchov (2003)
Celtic supporters would like to believe they are a much, much better team than any of those listed above.
This loss may sting for quite a while.
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