In an interview with his club’s official website, RB Leipzig manager Marco Rose praised Celtic goalkeeper Joe Hart, calling him a “fantastic goalie” after his team’s 2-0 away victory in the Champions League.
Celtic’s entire campaign in the group stage may be summed up in just one game. The team coached by Ange Postecoglou more than held their own against a premier European side, engaging in a back-and-forth slugfest but failing to capitalize on numerous opportunities to seal the victory.
Two golden chances were missed by Daizen Maeda. One Kyogo Furuhashi. Greg Taylor missed a goal that was rather simple to score. Celtic could have scored three or four goals and probably should have. That Janis Blaswich, the goalkeeper for Leipzig, was able to head back to Germany with a clean sheet is, therefore, evidence of the consistent wastefulness that has characterized Celtic’s whole European campaign.
It was a huge victory, but it was also well-deserved. Timo Werner and Emil Forsberg’s late goals for Leipzig made Celtic pay for their profligacy, and Rose adds that his team enjoyed playing against a tough opponent in a great stadium.
Although we got off to a strong start, we never developed into a serious threat. We held off on letting Celtic press early on, but after 20 minutes we started to open up and let them back into the game. But we made it through the difficult time.
The Champions League Game Between Celtic and Rb Leipzig Ended in A 2-0 Loss for Rb Leipzig
Of course, Leipzig had their own chances before Werner scored in the 75th minute. After his embarrassing performance at the Red Bull Arena last week, Hart rebounded back with two spectacular saves in one-on-one situations on each side of halftime.
The second half was completely ours to control. Moreover, “we had a couple of situations where luck was on our side,” says Rose, a former coach of Dortmund and Monchengladbach. However, we faced a strong defense and a talented team.
Blood and thunder displays against Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, and Leipzig have done Celtic little good at this point, as they have been eliminated from Champions League contention with just two games remaining. The Hoops could have won by nine points if things had gone differently. But instead, they have a single one.
Celtic will concede if they allow their opponents to create scoring chances, as their aggressive style leaves them vulnerable to counterattacks. Think about the caliber of players who have scored against Celtic in the group stages: Werner, Forsberg, Vinicius Jr., Luka Modric, Eden Hazard, Andre Silva, Christopher Nkunku, and the £50 million-rated Mykhaylo Mudryk.
We had our excellent moments and they had theirs,” he said. Werner, a German international, concedes that his team “got off quite lightly” when Celtic applied pressure.
“But in the end, we did find the solutions we were looking for. The crowd tonight was beyond wild. To conclude, I do not believe that our win was unearned. It’s truly incredible whenever a goal is scored in such a setting.