Celtic showed they belong on Europe’s biggest stage, after battling to a thrilling 2-2 draw with Atletico Madrid last night in the Champions League.

Following Feyenoord’s defeat of Lazio earlier in the night, Brendan Rodgers’ team knew they had to get a result against Diego Simeone’s men to stand any chance of qualifying for Europe after Christmas.

They went about it the right way, scoring early through Kyogo Furuhashi, before the visitors equalised through a rebounded penalty from Antoine Griezmann, whose initial strike had been saved onto the post by Joe Hart. A few minutes later, Luis Palma would exact revenge on the Champions League by scoring past Jan Oblak, following his strike against Lazio being ruled out for offside.

Celtic were showing that they belonged at this level and were giving one of Spain’s top sides all sorts of problems. However, Simeone’s side rallied and equalised through Alvaro Morata not long after the restart. Despite Rodrigo De Paul being shown a second yellow card, Celtic could only draw the game despite pushing for a winner.

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Brendan Rodgers was full of pride regarding his players after the match. He said to TNT Sports: “I thought they were absolutely superb in the game, and we scored two outstanding goals in the first 45 minutes against a top team.”

“We were great. They have big quality, but I think my players kept fighting and they kept going right to the very end and like I say it was a brilliant performance. To play to that level against an outstanding side shows the growth of the team.

Goalkeeper Hart was similarly proud of his teammates but felt slightly disappointed that the team could not win the game. He said: “We wanted to win tonight. We wanted to win every game. We have really gone for it tonight and we couldn't quite get it over the line, but we have got belief going into the final three games.

“I thought we were superb tonight, and that first half was electric. It is a shame that we conceded a somewhat soft penalty but that is Champions League football.”

Join Ryan McGinlay and special guest Ryan Fitzsimons, as they discuss last night’s game and more in Thursday’s edition of the morning briefing below.