Former Celtic and Scotland captain Paul Lambert has branded the Parkhead side’s forced qualification process to the group stages of the UEFA Champions League a “joke.”
Lambert, who won the competition with Borussia Dortmund, believes that any team who wins their league deserves to feature in the competition properly, without having to undergo a six-game audition to make it into the group stage.
“If you win your league then you should be straight in there,” said Lambert. “To have to get through six games before looking at a place in the competition is a joke. People will disparage Scottish football and fair enough, it is not at the same level as some of the top European league – but there is no league that is easy to win. If you are in a country that has access to the Champions League then the team that is the best in the country should be straight in there.
“It is an unfair system geared towards the best leagues. To me, Celtic have more than earned the right to be straight in there, as has any team who have won their league.
“It is so difficult because you need to lift your performances immediately. Celtic will go up against teams who are midway through their domestic season and it really does make it very difficult. It is a treacherous route just to get there.”
Meanwhile, Lambert has praised the desire and ambition of Scott Brown as the Celtic skipper writes his name into the Scottish record books.
Brown became the Scot to have made the most European appearances after hitting the 83-game mark in last week’s win over Linfield, eclipsing the previous record holder Barry Ferguson. Celtic will host Rosenborg on Wednesday night at Celtic Park with an aim of getting into the group stages of the competition again – with Brown’s ambitions possibly stretching all the way to 100 continental displays. And Lambert has applauded Brown’s continued ambition to play at the top.
“You need a thick skin to play at Celtic,” he said. “To have done it for a decade takes some doing.
“You need to be a big player to be able to fill the jersey at Celtic and to have that longevity, to be able to keep winning, to keep putting yourself out there says so much about his own ambition.
“There will be people who tell you they were Celtic players and live off an association with the club – but who were actually there for two minutes. To do it season after season and at the top level is impressive because it is a club where you don’t hide.
“You don’t get away with not playing at your best, with not winning things.
“I am not surprised that he has become the record holder in terms of the number of European games he has played because over the years he has shown leadership qualities but has also been integral to the club.
“He has thrived in an environment in which you don’t prove yourself and then sit back – you need to prove it again and again which is what makes the achievement so impressive. You can only admire that because it is the mark of a top player.”
Lambert was part of the Celtic team under Martin O’Neill who made it into the Champions League for the first time in 2001. Rosenborg were in that group – the Twin Towers disaster in America on September 11th prevented the Norwegians from being Celtic’s first opponents in the competition – and the former Scotland internationalist has cited the fitness levels of Rosenborg as having the potential to cause problems for Brendan Rodgers’ side.
“ They might not have the same big players that they did but what sticks in my mind was how fit they were,” said Lambert. “If memory serves me correctly, they were one of the first clubs in Europe to bring in their own sports scientists, to start with the ice baths and so on and my abiding memory of playing against them was just how physically fit they were.
“So while they might not have the same players, that’s a philosophy that doesn’t leave a club. That mantra will still be there and given that they are 17 games into the domestic season, they will be ahead of Celtic on that front which adds another dimension to it.”
The finances available to Celtic through participation in the group stages of the tournament lends itself to strengthening on the park, but for Lambert the competition is about more than just the economic benefits.
“There is a prestige to playing in the Champions League,” he said. “You can’t really appreciate just what the standard is like until you have played it. I consider myself really privileged to have played in it, to have won it with Borussia, and it is a breath-taking tournament to be part of.
“People never forget those games. I remember being absolutely scunnered when we finished the group in our first season being in it at Celtic with 9 points and didn’t go through – I still think we are one of the few teams to have been so unlucky with that tally of points not to progress.”
Not quite so gutting, however, as that sweaty night in Seville when an extra-time goal put paid to his hopes of adding a UEFA Cup medal to his Champions League winners’ gong.
“It is my biggest regret in football, Seville,” said Lambert. “We were so close, and so close against a very strong Porto side. If you remember, Porto went on and won the Champions League the following year with Jose Mourinho and they were an excellent team.
“I have never watched the game again. In saying that, I could still bring to mind very clearly every incident throughout that match. It still feels very clear in my head. In many ways, too, when you look back you realise just what a good side we were at the time.”
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