Celtic face Feyenoord in the Champions League on Tuesday evening, in a match which is being hyped up in the Netherlands.
The Rotterdam club are currently fourth in the Eredivisie, but there’s a lot of optimism around them. Ahead of the match against Brendan Rodgers’ side, Feyenoord have scored 17 goals over their past three matches, conceding three along the way.
Arne Slot’s team is clearly bang in form, and that’s the reason they’re feeling confident ahead of the Celtic match.
AD, perhaps the newspaper which covers Feyenoord the most, has several articles ahead of the match. One of those is entirely about Brendan Rodgers and his return to Celtic Park.
They’re clearly trying to up the internal drama at the Glasgow club this season, and state that when the manager returned to Celtic he was ‘detested by the majority of fans’, because of the way he left the last time.
AD state radio stations could ‘barely cope’ with the influx of ‘irate callers’ when he was appointed, and he’s had to win fans over again. For a Dutch audience it’s explained that he did that with a win over Rangers at the start of this month. That could be an excuse to talk up the Glasgow rivalry, which is always a favourite for the European media.
They even admit that whilst Feyenoord’s De Kuip stadium will be ‘raging’ against Celtic, it won’t quite match what they experience against Rangers multiple times a season.
During this new reign, AD again explain for their Dutch audience, Rodgers is going for pragmatism and a business-like approach, rather than giving his players total freedom.
Therefore, it’s believed the days of Rodgers’ Celtic team being ‘pulverised’ in Europe may not be repeated, and it’s a warning for Feyenoord.
Rodgers is said to have completely turned the perception of himself on its head at Celtic, and is now described as the ‘star’ of the show, just like Arne Slot at Feyenoord.
