If you know your history, and Brendan Rodgers most certainly does, then he'll be very aware of the cultural significance of Celtic embarking on a pre-season tour of the United States of America.

It was in the good ole US of A where the seeds of the club's greatest-ever season were sown by legendary Celtic manager Jock Stein and his players back in the summer of 1966.

Nobody could have scripted what would have happened when Stein took his team on a pre-season jaunt across the Atlantic. The six-week adventure saw Celtic holiday in Bermuda before playing 11 matches (winning eight and drawing three), scoring 47 goals in the process and conceding only six against local teams, a great Tottenham Hotspur Spurs team, Bayern Munich, Bologna, as well as New Jersey All-Stars.

The real all-stars were in green and white hoops as it turned out.

Celtic would return home to Scotland and hammer Matt Busby's Manchester United (complete with George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton) 4-1 at Celtic Park before sweeping the boards in a fairytale campaign that saw them win every competition available to them scoring a world record 196 goals in the process.

The Scottish League championship, the Scottish Cup, the Scottish Cup, the Glasgow Cup and of course the jewel in the football crown - the European Cup - all headed back to Glasgow.

It was Lisbon Lion Bobby Lennox who famously stated after the US tour: "With that impressive record behind us we looked forward to 1966-7 with confidence yet not realising that for all of us, the greatest season of our lives was about to dawn."

The greatest season of their lives indeed.

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It was Billy McNeill's old cinecamera footage that lay undiscovered in an attic for over 50 years before being dusted down for all to see.

There are wonderful scenes as Tommy Gemmell in one episode throws Stein's pork pie hat into the swimming pool in the baking hot sun much to the amusement of the cheering squad. The grainy pictures showed the close-knit and tight bond between the players and the manager who would go on to achieve legendary football status as Celtic became the first British side to lift the European Cup.

That camaraderie was developed in the USA. Stein believed in his men and the quality he had at his disposal. That belief was never misplaced. As Bertie Auld recalled: "Jock Stein knew the ability we had. He wanted people to build their own confidence."

The Lions got to know each other inside out by living in each other's pockets for six weeks. There was a method in Stein's madness though. Stein's happy group of Celtic pals bonded into a team. The finest team that Scotland has ever produced, no less. The one that all current Celtic sides are measured by.

This brings us rather neatly back to Rodgers' Celtic current tour of the USA. Now Rodgers' side won't win the Champions League next season but Celtic under the  Irishman can certainly sow the seeds of another successful campaign both at home and abroad whilst they are over Stateside.

Three games against D.C. United, Manchester City and Chelsea are the calibre of opposition that will set the men in green and white up rather nicely for when the real thing starts again on Sunday, August 4.

The Celtic supporters are growing more and more disgruntled at the lack of activity on the transfer front with no new signings arrived through the entrance door yet. Surprisingly many of the club's fans are running about with their hair on fire as to why there has been no new blood... yet.

Rodgers is a wise man. Remember his buzzword when it comes to recruitment - quality.

(Image: Agency)

If you listen very carefully the 51-year-old was reassuring in the aftermath of the Ayr United game on Friday night when it came to transfers and new players coming into the club.

When asked if he hoped to do business before the trip to America, Rodgers said: "There's just a lot of work going on behind the scenes. There’s lots of time. Of course, we would want to get them in sooner rather than later. But it's always a two-way thing, so hopefully we can get them done in the coming weeks.

"That's the plan. I think every manager would like them in on the first day but what's most important is the players we want are targeted. We know what we want to bring in to improve the squad and I'm sure over the coming weeks we'll conclude the deals and get us stronger for next season.

"We could have had nine players in by now if we wanted but it's all about the right players that we want to improve the squad. I'm very hopeful that come the end of the window, we'll have a really strong squad and be ready and prepared for an exciting season."

By connecting the dots and reading between the lines, Celtic will bring in new bodies before they go to the USA. The unveiling of new players excites the manager, players and supporters alike. It's also vitally important for any new recruit to get assimilated with his new teammates to form that bond and connection.

Celtic could well have three new players in situ by the time they head across the pond with deals reputed to be in the pipeline for Norwich City striker Adam Idah, Benfica midfielder Paulo Bernardo and Danish goalkeeper Peter Vindahl Jensen who have all been heavily linked with signing for the club this summer.

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The message from Rodgers is loud and clear - there is no panic. His answers to the transfer questions on Friday night in Ayrshire were illuminating as much as they were educational and enlightening. If anybody thinks the manager is not all across this at every level then they are not paying attention.

Rodgers like Stein is taking his men Stateside to bond and unite as a team and that will include some of the newbies. It's not the first time that Rodgers has delved into the Stein playbook. It won't be the last either. For instance, the week in May when Celtic clinched the title against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park, Rodgers took his side to the Seamill Hydro to prepare for a game of such magnitude.

It was Stein's favourite haunt with his all-conquering Celtic side of the late 1960s and 1970s. Rodgers said at the time: “I think Wednesday was a really nostalgic day. It started at Seamill. We had our pre-match there. It’s the place where I used to look at pictures of Jock Stein and those players. They used to do their pre-season there."

This is why Celtic's USA pre-season tour is no junket. Rodgers has drilled down into the details of this trip with military precision. It serves a massive purpose just like Stein's USA tour did in 1966. The blueprint for success both domestically and in Europe can be thrashed out and laid bare in pre-season.

In short, Rodgers will be doing exactly what Auld said Stein did on Celtic's tour of the USA 58 years ago. Rodgers will be wanting his people (players) both old and new to build their own confidence.

In all sports, confidence breeds success.

Standing on the steps of Celtic Park addressing the supporters after the club defeated Rangers 1-0 in the Scottish Cup final at Hampden Park back in May, a confident Rodgers had a simple message: "I just want you to remember one thing. When you support Celtic, you support one of the biggest clubs in world football.

“From the outside, this is a massive club but what we must never forget is that we’re all family and we have to look after each other’s family so we go into next season even tighter and even stronger.”

It was Stein who after the pre-season tour of the USA in 1966 built Celtic up into the biggest club in world football.

Stein built a formidable Celtic team during that tour. Rodgers is now attempting to do the same with Celtic on this Stateside trip, The premise for Rodgers is exactly the same. He wants a strong, tight-knit Celtic squad crammed full of quality.

Great teams can only be built with the right kind of players and the right kind of people. If Rodgers gets what he wants this summer in terms of signings then he like Stein is more than capable of looking after his Celtic family and building it up into something quite special moving forward.

Can Rodgers's Celtic class of 2024/25 embark upon, as Lennox so aptly put it, 'the greatest season of their lives?...'