“They may have had a bad day at the Nou Camp but they are strong in their own stadium and we’re expecting every game to be hard”.
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It was a “humbling” night for the Scottish champions as they were given a chasing but Rodgers moved quickly to banish the Barca blues and get morale back up ahead of the trip to Inverness tomorrow.
“They could not have come to a more hard place in world football, after a highly intense game at the weekend where they put so much into it and dealt with so much pressure and played so well”.
Rodgers acknowledged that his team had not been aggressive enough against Barcelona -…
But even in the qualifying games they were poor.
“Our attitude was always that we had a chance in every game we played and as a footballer, you want to look at a fixture list and see games against Barcelona and a home match against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City on the horizon”.
“I thought we were quality from start to finish and Tuesday night was quite a contrast”.
However, Rodgers insists Celtic should never be denied the opportunity to qualify for Europe’s elite tournament.
They beat Real Madrid 4-0 and other teams by more, so it doesn’t guarantee you anything.
Rodgers claimed before his team took on Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Neymar and co that the game was a free shot for the Parkhead side as no-one expected them to go to Catalonia and win.
Venegoor of Hesselink, appearing with former Rangers defender Arthur Numan at a William Hill media event at Ayr Racecourse where they made the draw for the William Hill Ayr Gold Cup race on Saturday, said: “That is the good thing about football”.
“I appreciate that it’s going to be tough, and this group was going to be hard with Barcelona and Manchester City”.
Rodgers’ men return to Ladbrokes Premiership duty on Sunday looking to make it five league wins out of five and Rodgers said: “We are very committed and very focused to winning games”.
“It’s Celtic, a huge club, they need to do a lot better and even when they qualified for this group the celebrations were way over the top”.
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“You go into games like this and it’s pressure-free”, he said. “I think they can still get third but you need to be a little bit lucky”.
