Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers took “immense pride” from their Champions League efforts after they secured “European credibility” by pushing Bayern Munich until the final moments in Germany.
The Hoops were seconds away from forcing the knockout phase play-off into extra time after Nicolas Kuhn netted in the 63rd minute.
Celtic had created four good opportunities in the opening 20 minutes and matched Bayern for long spells.
But the hosts exerted some sustained pressure late on and Alphonso Davies scrambled the ball home from a yard out with the four minutes of stoppage time almost up to seal a 1-1 draw and 3-2 aggregate victory.
Rodgers said: “I can only take immense pride from the performance. The guys gave everything.
“European credibility was always going to be important for us this season. That’s my takeaway from this campaign, from the 10 games. We learnt some valuable lessons along the way, we played some amazing football along the way.
“We’ve taken a club of this size and magnitude and a club where one of the players is maybe more than our budget…
“So, everything that comes with that, it allows us to build. Last year I felt that we had developed, even though we never got the points. Performance-wise it was good. I think this season has been very good. We’ve made the progress that made me want to come back.
“Now we’ve got to finish the season off strong. We’ve got two titles to go for, get into the Champions League next season, look to build the squad again.
“My unswerving plan is to make this a seasoned club at this level, where we can hurt big opponents like Bayern Munich.”
Rodgers added: “We’ll look back to the first game and those little details around the goals that we conceded.
“But I think it can give us nothing but confidence to show that the template I spoke about defensively was very good. We limited them to not so many chances.
“We looked dangerous when we had the ball, we had some real good opportunities. Going forward, we can take confidence from it and we can build the squad in order to be competitive at this level.”
There was frustration for Celtic that Daizen Maeda did not get a free-kick after being caught in the face by the arm of Bayern defender Dayot Upamecano before the hosts went forward and ultimately scored in a different phase of the attack.
What. It. Means.#FCBayern #MiaSanMia | #FCBCEL #UCL pic.twitter.com/2UMafzmhMu
— FC Bayern (@FCBayernEN) February 18, 2025
“That’s a little bit of our inexperience at this level,” Rodgers said. “Upamecano’s clever, he picks him up.
“It was a knock on the head. I felt the referee should have given the free-kick anyway or certainly stopped the game.
“Maybe a more experienced player or team might have stayed down and then the referee has to stop the game. But he didn’t, he played on and eventually they get the goal.
“We were disappointed that we obviously didn’t get that in the build-up.”
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