AN INEBRIATED Celtic supporter in the De Kuip main stand provided an unwelcome distraction from his club's encounter with Tottenham Hotspur on Friday.
AN INEBRIATED Celtic supporter in the De Kuip main stand provided an unwelcome distraction from his club's encounter with Tottenham Hotspur on Friday. Choosing to spectate by turning his back to the pitch, for the early part of the action he gleefull
y gestured he was ready to take on all-comers, and did indeed repel any challengers. Until a steward reined him in. Still, he ended the evening with feet up and illicitly puffing on a cigarette, untroubled by the deficiencies of his team exposed in a 2-0 defeat. Under Gordon Strachan, whole seasons have undulated in such fashion for the club's followers. And there is no reason to suspect the forthcoming campaign will be any different.
It is becoming a summer tradition for Celtic fans to bask in title success and convince themselves a couple of real marquee signings are about to make Strachan's team, rather than their successes, something to get giddy over.
Such an assessment is the kind to have Strachan feeling more put-upon than Gordon Brown. As he does regularly, because he believes judges of his efforts with the three-in-a-row Scottish Premierleague winners can appear about as gracious as he proved in failing to show for Thursday's press conference to preview the Jubileum Tournament, which today will see his men play hosts Feyenoord.
In the club's magazine the Celtic View this week, he defended his sparing media presence close season by saying the stress of answering questions left him needing a break from it. Working for the BBC during Euro 2008 must have helped. In the same interview, he also stated that the football Celtic produced last season was better than the previous term, and that they improved on last season in terms of goalscoring while no team bettered their record on goals conceded.
While all true and legitimate, Celtic remain a curious animal. Even if Strachan is a man of mettle and a coach of substance, has bought some good players, achieved the club's best title run in three decades and enjoyed back-to-back last-16 Champions League involvement that borders on the miraculous, there is still something missing. And the fact remains that, but for Rangers run to the UEFA Cup final, the SPL trophy would likely be missing from its semi-permanent residence in a cabinet at Celtic Park.
Truly zestful and imaginative displays from Strachan's Celtic sides are real rarities. The second half produced at home to Spartak Moscow last August and a 5-0 demolition of Hearts the following month stood apart in this respect. Strachan would point to the standard of player he must recruit from an increasingly over-priced market for that, but inferior Celtic teams have possessed a great joie de vivre. Perhaps his at times almost misanthropic demeanour precludes him from instilling such an approach in his charges. Yet that is not to say he cannot be the man to ratchet Celtic's performance levels up a notch.
Rangers will struggle to attain the consistency levels they achieved last season. Meanwhile, Celtic have sufficient craft in the form of Aiden McGeady and Shunsuke Nakamura, and enough goals in Scott McDonald and Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink to suggest a fourth title could be snared in less fraught fashion than the third. Replicating their feats in the Champions League could prove an almighty struggle, however.
Defence could hold the key to the latter. The pursuit of Gabriel Tamas indicates that Strachan recognises the limitations of the Stephen McManus and Gary Caldwell central defensive pairing. And, though there is currently disquiet among the Celtic legions that the club's summer transfer spend amounts to the £1.2m Georgios Samaras deal and the £150,000 paid for Paddy McCourt that will be quelled, most likely, with the arrival of Tamas and a left-back.
Strachan could then begin the season with a back-four all changed except for his captain McManus from the one with which he set out with last season. How Andreas Hinkel fares in that will be intriguing. In forking out £1.9m for the German internationalist in January, the acquisition from Seville represented the first defender the Celtic manager had invested heavily in since arriving at the club in the summer of 2005.
The 26-year-old admits arriving mid-season has him looking upon this summer as a fresh start. "I found it difficult to settle at first because there were so many things to adapt to: the new team, the new club, the philosophy of their football," he says. "I could have gone to Borussia Dortmund, but I am convinced that I made the right decision."
Hinkel, refreshingly for a Celtic employee, doesn't side-step the issue of Rangers' European demands when assessing the factors that allowed him to claim a Scottish league championship medal on the final day of the season.
"Of course it had an influence on the way the games went," he says. "I have to thank my old club Stuttgart because they had a chance to finish third in Rangers' Champion League group, which meant they would have gone into the Uefa Cup and not Rangers. All the games to the final were good for us."
The games that were good for Hinkel in Celtic colours were the three he played against Rangers. Although his form may have been patchy overall, in impressing in the most exacting environment he demonstrated the calibre expected of player with 17 full caps, who signed for Seville from Stuttgart for ¤4m (£3.15m) in 2006. He takes pride in his achievements with the Andulucia club, despite finding himself behind Daniel Alaves for the right-back berth. It cost him his place in the international set-up and, despite harbouring ambitions of a return, has not been called up under Joachim Low, his reserve coach when he was breaking through at Stuttgart.
"Seville was difficult because I wasn't playing but I have to say it was one of the best times of my life, a special time," he says. "They signed me because they thought Alves would go to Chelsea or Liverpool, then he didn't move.
"The atmosphere was good – a great family and I learned a lot of things from the team-mates and my coach (Juande Ramos]. We had a very strong team. We beat Arsenal in the group stages of the Champions League, which wasn't down to luck, we won the Uefa Cup twice, the Spanish Cup, and the Super Cup. We finished third in La Liga but we could have won the championship one year. If we had won our last two games we would have done. It was incredible but every player played a good role for the squad.
Celtic provides Hinkel with different challenges. The intensity and pressure brought to bear surpasses that in his previous postings. "At Seville, everyone wanted you to win but here you have to do it. It is the same situation you get with Barcelona, or the teams in England and Germany that are always at the top. When you don't win, it's a problem. In Stuttgart it was different. The people there were always looking to lower expectations. It was a case of 'maybe we can go for the championship but a Uefa Cup place is okay'. It is the players' job here to deal with the intensity. If you win three in a row, you have to win four, five, maybe six. You have to be strong in the head. It is not easy but the players here are used to it, have a strong mentality, and are always challenging themselves.
"It is not just the fans who are never satisfied, it's everybody – the players, the people who run the club. But it is harder to hold a level than reach a level, because when you are at the top everyone wants to push you off."
And even when you are at the top, people want you to push on.
The full article contains 1358 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
