THE Europa League trophy was so close yesterday that Celtic's players could almost touch it.
No Scottish side has been able to get their hands on this handle-less silver cup on a yellow marble plinth, a product of the Bertoni workshop in Milan and the heaviest of all the cups in European Cup competitions.
But here it was, at the club's Lennoxtown training base, on its own whistlestop mini-European tour, a series of events planned to allow fans and local schoolchildren the chance to get near it. How close the Scottish champions will ever be again to taking this illustrious piece of silverware into their possession remains to be seen, but if anything is stopping them it won't be superstition. One by one, the players trooped past it yesterday, afraid to lay their hands on it for fear that it would jinx their chances of doing so for real in Warsaw in May.
"I didn't touch the trophy - it is a superstition," said Jason Denayer ahead of tomorrow's Group D encounter with Red Bull Salzburg at Parkhead. "Everybody told me 'don't touch the trophy, that is bad luck'. So I didn't. I wanted to but I couldn't.
"It is not impossible for us to win it but we will need to play well. We will need to be 100 per cent every game because there are some very good teams in it and in the next round some more very good teams will drop down from the Champions League."
Celtic require a solitary point against the Austrians tomorrow night - or for Dinamo Zagreb to slip up against FC Astra Giurgiu - to be sure of reaching the last 32, while one of these parachute teams, of course, could be Denayer's parent club Manchester City. But regardless of what fate awaits the Eastlands side, this 19-year-old Belgian knows all about the history when it comes to Celtic's dalliance with the forerunner of this competition.
His father Andre, with whom Jason lives in Glasgow, made sure to fill his son in about the finer points of the run to the Uefa Cup final in Seville in 2003, the last time Celtic came close to getting their hands on this trophy.
"My dad speaks to me about this," said Denayer. "They got to the final, right? He tells me how great that was and says it would be great to go back to the final again this year and win the cup. That is the only way I will be able to touch the cup!"
Not all 19-year-old footballers living in a foreign country would be desperate to co-habit with their old da but a few home comforts have helped Denayer settle in, first in Manchester and now Scotland. "Scotland feels just like Belgium for me now, there is no difference," he said. "I spend a lot of time with my dad, watching football games, going to Nando's, doing some shopping and going to the cinema.
"My dad watches a lot of football and reads about it too," he added. "He is a real football fan, although he only played when he was younger in Belgium. But he is the guy who tells me what to do, what is bad and what is good."
Salzburg are formidable opponents. John Collins, Celtic's assistant manager, regards them as possibly the finest pressing team in Europe. Denayer can be counted on for some inside information. While Jonathan Soriano is the man who really makes them tick, winger Massimo Bruno, a colleague of Denayer's from the Belgium Under-21 side, has scored three goals in three appearances.
"I know Massimo from the Belgium international set-up," said Denayer. "I have played only two games with him with the Under-21s but he is a very good player. He is a very good dribbler and very fast so if you are playing against him you have to be very careful. He didn't play in Salzburg, he was on the bench. We haven't spoken recently, but I will send him some text messages . . . just to say 'good luck'.
"Soriano isn't really fast, or really strong," he added, "but he is very intelligent. He is the player we need to be most concerned with as he can change the game with every pass, every attack. My objective is to go higher in the game so I need to prove myself at this level."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article