BRENDAN Rodgers regularly takes a broader view when it comes to football matters but never to the extent of being side-tracked from the main job at hand. Rodgers hopes Celtic’s progression into the Champions League group stage for the second successive season – which will almost certainly be confirmed in Kazakhstan on Tuesday night following the second leg of their play-off round tie with Astana – will have the effect of bolstering Scottish football’s reputation as a whole.

Winning the first leg 5-0 in a match broadcast live across the UK on BT Sport and analysed by a panel of one-time England players including Rodgers’ former Liverpool captain, Steven Gerrard, did not do any harm to either club or country. The Scottish domestic scene may be regularly sneered at down south but winning – and winning well – in the Champions League, even in the qualifiers, always delivers a certain cachet.

Rodgers is happy to play his part in giving the Scottish game a leg-up if he can but it is of secondary importance to him. It remains all about Celtic and advancing their cause. It perhaps explained why he looked a touch perplexed when told there was a school of thought that Celtic’s growing financial and playing power is leaving the rest behind in an ever-expanding shadow. That is not his problem.

“I tend not to worry so much [about the other clubs] - I tend to worry about Celtic,” he said. “I can’t be looking in my slipstream wondering where everyone is. If I’m in a race, I’m never looking back, I’m only looking forwards.

“I’ve been asked the question ‘do we need other teams to do well?’ but you worry about yourself and set our own standards. It’s a relentless drive to be the best that you can be. It doesn’t matter what other teams are doing.

“I want to represent Celtic the best I can but I want Scotland to feel pride that they have a team in there competing and trying their best with football. That is productive for Scotland.

“The reality is if we get £30 million or £40m from the Champions League I won’t be getting £30m to spend on players or a player. What it does do is allow us as a club to keep making steps forward.

“Other teams [Rangers, Aberdeen and St Johnstone] had the opportunity to play European football this season, it wasn’t just us. So if they had progressed then that would have improved their pot of money. For us, if we can consolidate Champions League football for the second consecutive year, then that’s great for our project and what we’re trying to do.”

It would take the mother of all comebacks for Astana to deny Celtic that now. No team in 62 years of European Cup competition has recovered from a 5-0 first-leg deficit – Celtic probably came closest in 2005, drawing to within a goal of Artmedia Bratislava – and you can get odds of 50/1 for the Kazakhs being the first to achieve such a turnaround.

Rodgers, though, is taking no chances. He will send his “best team” on the six-hour flight today with a view to winning the second leg, too.

“What we’ve tried to create here is that complacency is your disease,” he added with a typically poetic flourish. “Whoever plays, we go to win. We don't have to, but we want to.

“We want to fight for the result and complete the job and if we do that on Tuesday it’ll be a remarkable achievement in terms of the pressures on them this season and the absence of really decisive players.

“We prepare for the game to the same detail as last week. We had John McGlynn out there for a week to watch two games - his body clock was all over the place! But we did our work, and it’ll be the same this time. We plan to win. That’s our way of working.”

Rodgers revealed the details of his pre-match team talk that motivated his players to one of their most accomplished European victories for quite some time.

“In a roundabout way, I said to them that this is a game that you play with your heart. These [Astana] are standing in the way of something we want to achieve. It’s been a long journey for us, so we have to run like hell, we have to fight like hell to get there.

“It was a game to play with your brain, because your heart’s not enough. You’ve got to play football, be tactically organised and stay calm in your defensive and offensive organisation. Then just let them know that they’re not going to have to wait for us; we’re coming for the game.

“My final point was go and enjoy it. You’re not a soldier, you’re not going to war. This is a game to be enjoyed, with 60,000 fanatical supporters willing you on.”

Amid the post-match celebrations, Rodgers dragged Nir Bitton over to accept some individual acclaim in front of the Green Brigade. With neither Dedryck Boyata nor Erik Sviatchenko likely to be fit again before the start of next month, the Israeli will likely continue to deputise in central defence. And his manager believes it is a role Bitton could fill again in future.

“It’s an option,” admitted Rodgers. “If Boyata is fit, he's playing, simple as that. But it’s great having that flexibility and that multi-functional player in your squad.

“If you didn't know he was a midfielder, people would say he was a good centre-half. I've seen him make fewer mistakes than an actual centre-half.

“He’s six foot five, he heads the ball, can attack, has decent speed, and he has this wonderful ability to pass the ball from here to there. Sometimes he’ll give it away and make a mistake but every player does.

“There was focus on this idea it was a gamble - absolute nonsense. I see him every day in training in real-game situations. Sometimes his hardest work is there. So I know what he's capable of. And he's been brilliant.”