It is very easy to lose a Champions League match away from home to a Pot 1 team.

Indeed, using every conceivable scenario known to football, Celtic have achieved just that consistently over the last 25 years. When you add in a confluence of bad luck, incredible opposition finishing, and horrendous individual errors, you don’t lose, you get eviscerated.

This isn’t going to be a sob story of why Celtic were robbed. Yes, the opening penalty was hugely unfortunate given the deflection off Callum McGregor into Jamie Gittens’ path. Yes, the second was horrendous for Auston Trusty and Kasper Schmeichel as the American’s block on Karim Adeyemi’s shot resulted in the ball flying perfectly into the top corner. Furthermore, Adeyemi’s second goal had an xG of 0.01 according to StatsBomb. All within 29 minutes.

No, Celtic were set up to fail from the outset given their pressing structures, their off-the-ball shape and the spacing between the players. In other words, basic off-ball tactics.

A timeline of self-destruction

Four minutes

Dortmund played out from the press as they largely do, despite some early small wins of blocks by Celtic.

Trusty is doing what Celtic centre-backs do. They follow their direct opponent aggressively, even challenging for aerial duels inside the opponent’s half. Nominal holding midfielder McGregor was halfway inside the Dortmund half, and behind Trusty was a ticking time-bomb.

Trusty won his header well and the ball fell at the feet of Pascal Gross. Not unexpectedly, his first-time accurate pass found Adeyemi as intended. This was now a nightmare. Adeyemi was running directly at Greg Taylor, Serhou Guirassy was in Liam Scales' blind spot and playmaker Julien Brandt was utterly free.

In preparation for this match, if I was thinking: 'What are the scenarios I want to avoid at ANY cost?', it would be this. Four minutes in. Adeyemi wasted the opportunity in this instance.

11 minutes

Dortmund played out from a deep press, via goalkeeper Gregor Kobel.

McGregor was nowhere near the number ten Brandt and he formed part of a four versus four on the halfway line.

Remarkably, the £20 million striker Guirassy controlled the ball on his chest whilst Scales followed him all the way. Not only that, he found Brandt. Now, against a retreating Celtic rearguard, the 47-capped German international player had the choice of which exceptionally quick forward he could play in. He chose Adeyemi who ran ahead to score. Celtic had just equalised.

When we talk about lack of game management, this is on the syllabus and will become a case study that comes up in every exam.

16 minutes

Pressing superhuman Daizen Maeda had centre-back Waldemar Anton pinned against the touchline in the right-back position. This was a promising position for Celtic.

Incredibly, £20 million centre-back Anton was both strong enough and skilful enough to evade Maeda and play a ball through to Adeyemi. A simple pass put Dortmund up four versus three on the halfway line.

Adeyemi turned and played in Brandt, and Dortmund were three versus two as per the second goal – he could choose between which extreme speedster to play in against a retreating back line. In this instance, Gittens was just offside.

18 minutes

18 minutes? Blimey, are we not done yet? Oh lordy no. Johnston made the bad decision to play a lofted pass into his central midfield area. This was a difficult pass for anyone to control and the risks if the ball is lost were too severe.


Adeyemi (I’ve heard of him before) won the aerial duel but on the face of it, the danger is averted as he headed it back towards his defensive line.

Anton immediately heads the ball forward. This is low risk for him given the acres of unmanned space in front of Celtic’s box. Anton’s header took out (packs) the whole Celtic midfield and landed at Brandt’s feet. Dortmund were now four versus four against the Celtic rearguard. Taylor was once again out of alignment with the rest of the defence - Brandt played in Gross, who butchered a wonderful opportunity.

28 minutes

We jump forward ten minutes – yay! I included this one for the sheer giggles.

As they had done all game, Dortmund looked for the big diagonal switch, Note that the Celtic midfield is almost totally emptied. See also the almost comedic and different reactions of the defenders. Nothing came of this, but the respite lasted less than a minute.

As Dortmund recycled the ball, Emre Can looked up and saw Adeyemi (!) in acres of space ahead of him.

Remarkably, Adeyemi was capable of taking the pack pass from Can - which has taken out the whole Celtic midfield -, turned and ran at pace at a retreating rearguard - again.

In this instance, Johnston intercepted the through-ball. From the resulting corner, Adeyemi scores the third goal.

36 minutes

Dortmund had the ball in their back line. Ideally, Celtic should be able to contain this situation.

Engels jumped into a press on the centre-back Anton. Given how central he is - and therefore how straightforward it should be to play through the press - this is not a great decision. It is compounded by no one else joining in - which is compounded by the huge gaps between the Celtic lines.

Ahead of Anton - if he can complete the pass - Dortmund have five attackers versus four Celtic defenders.

Remarkably, Anton completed the pass. Recipient Gittens had the time and ability to turn, and was again running at the retreating rearguard - with support runners all across the pitch.

Summary

We’ve seen before that if it can go wrong it will.

However, when you set up with a badly executed press against technically able players, you have a chasm of space between the pressers and defenders, and the defensive line is so high that incredibly fast forwards are constantly bearing down on your goal whilst you run towards it, then a very bad outcome is guaranteed.

The thing is, Dortmund’s strengths (deep passing excellence from Can and Gross, extreme counterattacking pace across the front line, and a love of running at teams) were well known.

Celtic set up in a way that maximised Dortmund’s strengths to be pivotal. The only ray of light I have is that this was such a shocking experience deep learning MUST follow.