Celtic are into the Scottish Cup final and can relax after a thrilling semi-final victory over Aberdeen on penalties.
Throughout normal and extra time, the Bhoys were involved in a chaotic affair that yielded six goals, with Nicolas Kuhn, James Forrest, and Matt O’Riley getting on the scoresheet for Brendan Rodgers’ men.
Bojan Miovski, Ester Sokler and Angus MacDonald led Aberdeen’s rebuttal as nothing could separate the sides, resulting in a shootout where Joe Hart took the plaudits for saving Killian Phillips’ spot-kick to become the man of the hour.
Post-match, Rodgers reserved praise for veteran winger Forrest due to his lively impact off the bench, stating: “He was absolutely brilliant, he changed the game for us. It was just his composure and his quality. We started to keep the ball in the final third, he got the goal.
“He’s just a big-game player with big-game experience. Another big plus was that when we took Callum off, Jamesie gave us another experienced head out there.”
Nevertheless, he made way late on for Maik Nawrocki; meanwhile, Paulo Bernardo, Tomoki Iwata, Adam Idah, and Luis Palma all came off the bench to convert from 12 yards.
Brendan Rodgers lauds substitutes for showing ‘great courage’
Coming into a pressurised Scottish Cup semi-final and scoring a penalty requires a fair amount of steel from those involved, and Rodgers was quick to acknowledge the character shown by Idah, Palma, Bernardo, and Iwata to carry out the task at hand.
All four players slotted away convincing spot-kicks, building the platform for Ryan Duncan to miss before Hart denied Phillips to seal our passage to the final.
Acknowledging the quartet, Rodgers explained [Cited via The Celtic Way]: “I think it shows the spirit and the bond that the players have. We talked before about the game plan coming into the match, and those guys coming in to finish the game and make an impact was going to be key for us.
“They showed great courage to come into the game, and their penalties were very good.”
Football is a team game, and regardless of your opinion on Celtic’s game management against Aberdeen, every player left everything out there on the pitch, stepping up when it mattered most at Hampden.
Of course, there is much to improve on as we look to smash through the Scottish Premiership finish line, though sometimes you need to give credit where credit is due to a group that didn’t stop believing in themselves despite engineering some tricky circumstances through lapses in concentration.