BRENDAN RODGERS has now had two sliding-door moments in his life.

The first came over two years ago when Steven Gerrard, of all people, fell on his backside and allowed Chelsea to score at Anfield on a day that more or less ended Liverpool’s hopes of winning their first English league title since 1990.

They did not and soon they had lost Soon they had lost Louis Suarez – who was never going to hand around a club that couldn’t win – and Rodgers was sacked within a year after trying and failing to coax even average performances from Mario Balotelli.

None of this happens if Gerrard, a genuine world-class footballer, stays on his feet.

But on Tuesday night in the Turner Stadium in a rural Israeli town called Be’er Sheva, about 25 minute’s drive from the Gaza Strip, the hand of fate didn’t strangle the now Celtic manager but rather patted him on the back.

Rodgers isn’t daft. That much is for sure. He will know that if Hapoel had not lost key players to injury during the match, if they had not missed their chances, and there were plenty of them, in the second half, then Celtic would be out.

However, unlike that afternoon at Anfield, the ball bounced the right way for Rodgers and his new team. He should enjoy these times because football has a habit – and he will know this better than most – of giving you a kick when nobody is looking.

“It will feel really, really nice to watch the draw,” said a smiling Rodgers. “It will sink in over the next day or two – the achievement traced back to June 25 and what we walked into. We have started on the first day and this was our first target.

“It’s amazing to have actually achieved that and it’s a huge success for the club, particularly for the players. Europe will be happy as well when they see a great club like Celtic involved, with our supporters. Hopefully it will be a nice evening and we can get a good draw.

“I am very optimistic and positive in my outlook, but you can’t get too far ahead of yourself. My thoughts were getting there and then it will be nice to see our name in the pot. Then let’s see what the draw is.”

There are only a handful of players at Celtic Park these days who have experienced Champions League football at the club, and even those who came after the win over Barcelona only know tricky times.

Then there were two play-off defeats during the Ronny Deila era and the supporters began to wonder whether the team had it within them to dig deep and win ties as they failed to do against Malmo a year ago.

The players, ultimately, will benefit from a renewed sense of belief after negotiating their way through a difficult play-off which could have ended in tears.

So much belief will the players have taken from a play-off they struggled in but still qualified from.

“They will probably answer that better than me. But I think what I have tried to install is that they are good guys,” said Rodgers. “They are good players and they needed help in order to achieve what they wanted to achieve.”

During his debrief with the written press, Rodgers admitted that he had sent a note to Scott Brown on Tuesday and even revealed what the cryptic message was.

“It said: 'Any danger?'” revealed Rodgers. “Seriously, it was just to make sure they understood the shape from what we were going with. If you leave the message with a player, sometimes it doesn’t get delivered quickly on quick enough.

“Scotty’s a great communicator, so Erik [Sviatchenko] gave it to him and he could see the shape of the team and what personnel had to go to what positions and what we were trying to achieve. Rip it up quickly and go.

“I’ve done it in the past. It’s not a book! You have to be short, sharp and concise with your information.

“Listen, the quality of your life is down to the quality of your communication skills. However you get it on there, however it is written, whether it is verbal, you need to get the message on there. I thought we then found calmness.

“The issue was that they were throwing caution to the wind and bombing everyone forward. The problem was on the sides. Initially, they had a diamond in the first half, but the tempo was up for them and we could contain that, so we switched from 4-3-3 to a diamond at the beginning of the half.”

A Celtic team that can change during a game to deal, successfully as well, with a crisis thanks to a scribbled note. They would never have made a movie about that. Nobody would believe it.