SCOTT Brown, still in full kit, put down a half drunk bottle of beer as he began his media duties. It would not be his last drink of the night.
Aside from playing in a major international tournament, Celtic’s captain has now done it all. The treble was the only thing missing, he said so himself, and he now follows in the footsteps of Billy McNeill and Paul Lambert.
Not only that, but his team didn’t lose a single game all domestic season. That's 47 games.
The 2-1 win was oh-so Celtic. This is a club with a history littered with such drama. They didn’t let down their supporters down at Hampden.
“It’s the best feeling I have ever had,” said Brown who was almost bouncing as he spoke. “From start to finish we knew the game was going to be hard and Aberdeen did come at us and they did really well but luckily for us we have that quality in Tom Rogic right at the end.
“That showed our fitness. They had a lot of pace on the counter-attack and in Jonny Hayes they have a phenomenal player who is so quick and we were a little worried about that.
“What I would say is the lads in that dressing room are a very close bunch. It doesn’t matter if they are Scottish or from elsewhere, we all stick together and that showed in the celebration.”
So was there ever any doubt?
“As soon as they scored! It was a great finish by Jonny, it was something they clearly had worked on in training, when he’s managed to finish when they rest of them have ran to the front post to create space for him.
“We then go straight up the park and score right away. Stuart Armstrong scored and he’s been doing that all season for us. Stuart has scored, created chances and has driven us on from midfield. It was a great finish for by him.
“The fact it went down to the last minutes today sums us up. But when you go back to that first game in Gibraltar, I don’t think anyone would have expected this; for us to go all the way through the season undefeated and to win three trophies. That’s phenomenal.”
Brown being Brown couldn’t resist going to the Aberdeen supporters at the end and also aimed a tiny wee dig at Ryan Jack, his direct opponent yesterday.
“Yeah, I’m looking forward to him going to Rangers. I hope he goes,” he said. Still smiling.
From the winning captain to Graeme Shinnie, Aberdeen's on-field leader, who did little wrong in the match and yet didn’t get his hands on the cup.
“I’ve enjoyed a last minute goal here and I know how that feels. Now I know the opposite of that and it’s not a great feeling,” he said with some understatement. “The game was even, we maybe sunk a wee bit towards the end but that’s natural given how much the boys put in it. But I think up until maybe the 70th minute we were in the game and we had a couple of chances to even go ahead in the second half - chances that you probably need to take in a game like this.
“We said after the league game when they went 3-0 up after 10 minutes that we had them rattled. Even though we were three down we got the goal back and had them rattled so we knew we could do it. The boys did that very well but when opportunities come around you have to take them but we didn’t and got punished in the end by the late goal.”
Shinnie and Mikael Lustig had words when Celtic’s Swedish defender celebrated right in the Aberdeen man’s face.
“He came over and apologised so there’s no hard feelings there for me. I’m a big enough man to take that,” said Shinnie. They’ve won the treble and they deserve to celebrate.”
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