Can Celtic develop in Europe under Rodgers? - Alan Morrison

Two articles that are worth touching on are, firstly, a piece in the Daily Mail in which the narrative is that if Rodgers does not get Celtic to a European final in five years, he has failed. The Hoops are apparently a "complete irrelevance – a laughing stock (sic)” outside of Scottish football. 

At the BBC, Tom English picked up the baton. He focused on the Northern Irishman's overall record in Europe across his times at Liverpool, Leicester City and Celtic.

He said: "An overall record of 20 wins from 62 group and knockout games is a significant blot on the record of a manager who has achieved many excellent things in his career.

"The memory of some of the hidings he suffered at Celtic against the European elite - and not so elite - will not have faded."

Other than twice making reference to “European challenges”, there are no outlandish claims in the only press releases available so far from the club on the new appointment. 

Nevertheless, Celtic should aspire to use European peers as their benchmark for assessing all manner of performance from player trading model success (e.g. Porto, Benfica, RB Salzburg) to on-field success. Being better than one domestic rival will not drive a culture of excellence at the club.

Achieving, or even defining, success at the European level is difficult. In the age before crippling wage disparity, Celtic, under expert management from Jock Stein, could regularly threaten the latter stages of the premier European competition.

The gradual disintegration of the USSR and Yugoslavia creating a slew of nations bigger than Scotland, allied to the devastating skew caused by television money within the larger nations, has made success in Europe for clubs from countries outside those top five leagues (England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain), highly challenging.

Yet Celtic, with over 50 thousand season ticket holders, a healthy commercial arm, and steady access to the top table, should aspire to better.

What does better mean? At this stage of the 21st Century, and without a single knockout tie success since 2004, achieving that would be a start.

A potential benchmark is European football after the New Year, in practical terms that means getting out of the group stages. This is further complicated with teams dropping between UEFA tournaments. 

Time to get to the data. Which Celtic manager this century has the best record?

Point Percentage

A far superior measure than win percentage is points percentage which recognises that a draw is a legitimate result. Indeed, this season, a draw in the Champions League group stages wins your club 930,000 Euros. 

Applying three points for a win and one for a draw to all matches yields the following:

Neil Lennon’s record is admirable in that he has the most matches as a manager and the highest overall points percentage ahead of Martin O’Neill. Ange Postecoglou is battling relegation with Tony Mowbray and Gordon Strachan, while Rodgers has mid-table mediocrity.

Even this century, the format of European competition has changed markedly. Remember two group stage stages?

READ MORE: The Celtic transfer lessons that Rodgers must learn from

Also, depending on coefficients and league placing, whether you start in qualification playing part-time teams comes into it versus a direct entry to the Champions League Group Stage.

Here are the percentage of overall points won across the various competition stages (Champions League qualification, Champions League group and knock out and Europa League):

This demonstrates that Strachan only ever competed at Champions League level during his tenure, and 83 per cent of the points he achieved were in group stage football. No one comes close to this, with O’Neill winning 28 per cent of his points at a similar stage.

Rodgers has a similar distribution to Lennon in that he won most of his points in either Champions League qualification or in the Europa League.

Lennon’s record is put into context better by this view. He was manager when Celtic regularly had to navigate two or three rounds of qualification but against sides from relatively minor leagues. Therefore, he racked up wins against teams from Finland, Sweden and Ireland.

Rodgers was similarly efficient at qualification ties. Both floundered, however, at the Champions League group stage.

Champions League qualification

Here are the records across the Champions League qualification stages:

Both O’Neill and Rodgers managed two out of three qualification campaigns successfully. Lennon three from five. Strachan benefitted from two automatic qualifications. Mowbray and Deila failed to navigate qualification and Postecoglou had one direct entry.

Champions League group stage

Once the group stage was achieved:

Strachan’s two last 16 campaigns are extraordinary by the standards of this century. O’Neill couldn’t get Celtic out the group to progress to the knockout stages and had the consolation of the then UEFA Cup.

READ MORE: What Celtic means to Brendan Rodgers in 2023 - Tony Haggerty

Lennon is the only other manager to navigate the team out of the group stage once. 

Europa League / Conference

Celtic have been, based on the volume of fixtures, a Europa League-level team for most of this century. The overall record is:

Here, O’Neill’s 2002-03 run to the final stands out as the exceptional year and was followed by a run to the quarter-final in 2003-04. Even more remarkable was that the Seville season included wins against opposition from the top five leagues in Stuttgart, Celta Vigo, Liverpool and Blackburn Rovers. 

Rodgers managed to navigate out of both Europa League groups in his tenure.

Of Celtic managers this century, it would be difficult to argue against both O’Neill for getting to a final and quarter-final and winning knockout matches and Strachan for playing all his matches at that level and getting out of the group twice, as being the benchmark for performances.

Rodgers would be, at best, the third best contested with Lennon.

Rodgers at Liverpool

He was the manager at Liverpool between two successful eras of Rafa Benitez and Jurgen Klopp.

Rodgers got Liverpool out of the Europa League group but was immediately knocked out by Zenit St Petersburg. Liverpool failed to even qualify in his second season.

Champions League football was secured on the back of his second-place finish in 2013-14 but he failed to get them out of a group containing Real Madrid, FC Basel and Ludogorets Razgrad. A last 32 defeat to Besiktas followed.

A very modest record for such a storied European club.

Rodgers at Leicester City

Leicester City have only been in European football six times and two of those campaigns were under Rodgers. He again guided a team out of the Europa League group in 2020-21 before immediate defeat to Slavia Prague.

The following season saw relative failure by finishing third but the consolation of the Conference League beckoned. Rodgers took his team to the semi-final losing by one goal to eventual winners AS Roma.

Technically that is Leicester City’s best European campaign, although achieving a Champions League quarter-final in 2016-17 could be argued to be the tougher challenge.

Summary

For Celtic to achieve European success (winning post-New Year knockout matches) under Rodgers, both he and the team will need significant improvement.

Rodgers does have a record of navigating Europa League groups but has a mixed record in the knockouts and has not been able to oust a major club.

READ MORE: Odin Thiago Holm: What Norwegian will bring to Celtic

Financial dominion over Scottish football will not change this radically. Indeed, very simply, Celtic likely need better players to compete in Europe. 

Both English and Keown are onto something in their contrasting styles in that Rodgers has much to prove given his record at Leicester City and Liverpool, where he had large wages to play with.

Celtic have underachieved in Europe for most of this century, so in that sense it is a low bar to cross.