For Celtic supporters of a certain age, viewing the outcome of a drab affair in Zagreb in a positive light was not too difficult.
In 41 games previous games on the road in the Champions League, their team had avoided defeat on only seven occasions. Just twice had they celebrated a victory – the last of which came in Brussels against Anderlecht seven years ago.
Among the litany of losses, those fans had witnessed their favourites concede five, six (twice) and seven (three times). Given the last of those annihilations came in Dortmund at the outset of this campaign, seeing a second successive clean sheet being chalked up away from home felt like another step in the right direction.
The goalless draw earned by Brendan Rodgers players came on the back of a hard-won point taken away to Atalanta, a magnificent home win against RB Leipzig and a home draw with Brugge.
Not since the mid 80s when Celtic played Real Sociedad, Shamrock Rovers (twice) and Dynamo Kyiv across four seasons had the Parkhead club avoided defeat in four successive matches in the European Cup/Champions League. Credit where it’s due; nothing at that level comes easy.
Now sitting on nine points after six matches and having lost five fewer goals than at this stage in the past two campaigns (10 v 15), Celtic are in a strong position to extend their adventure.
Brendan Rodgers was left to rue the one that got away after failing to win on Tuesday night
Celtic captain Callum McGregor struggled to dictate in what was a scrappy affair in Croatia
Rodgers commiserates with Nicolas Kuhn, who has been in spectacular form of late
On paper, Tuesday’s share of the spoils looked like an agreeable outcome. So why did so many who witnessed it – including Rodgers – leave the Croatian capital nursing a sense of deflation?
The fact is that a depleted Dinamo side were there for the taking. Since time immemorial, Scottish clubs have rolled into foreign cities and been told they were facing a club in crisis. Normally, this is little more than gamesmanship.
Yet, for once, in the case of Zagreb, this was absolutely no exaggeration. Manager Nenad Bjelica had 13 players with first-team experience missing and just four fit defenders.
On his bench sat two individuals – Raul Torrente and Juan Cordoba – who were injured and were only there to make up the numbers.
Another five substitutes had been in the youth team squad for their game earlier that day. Two of them, Tomas Bakovic and Marko Zebic, had played.
Low on confidence after going five games without a win in all competitions and slipping to third place in their league, they looked vulnerable.
In a flat atmosphere inside the crumbling Maksimir Stadium, a fast start from Celtic and an early goal might well have opened the floodgates.
Instead, Rodgers’ side were ponderous and predictable. Slack passing prevented them from getting into a rhythm and allowed a well-drilled Dinamo side to get a foothold in the game.
A bumpy surface didn’t help matters, but Rodgers’ players didn’t help themselves.
Daizen Maeda couldn’t free himself from Dario Spikic on one flank. Nicolas Kuhn seldom got a run on Ronael Pierre-Gabriel on the other.
Paulo Bernardo was busy but Callum McGregor, on his 100th European appearance, struggled to find space to dictate the game in his normal fashion. Reo Hatate needed someone to tell him that sometimes a five-yard pass to a ream-mate is what’s required.
With the Croatians compressing the space between their defence and midfield, Celtic needed to play smarty and with invention, yet they failed to do so. Even after Rodgers rang the changes by introducing a raft of substitutions, the home side had Celtic where they wanted them.
The service to Kyogo Furuhashi was poor and improved little once Adam Idah replaced the Japanese. A truly awful game of football got the scoreline it deserved.
Rodgers was right to conclude that his side simply hadn’t done enough in the final third to earn the win. His disappointment at the side failing to take a golden opportunity was understandable.
‘They defended well, they restricted us to our normal possibilities that we have in games,’ he reflected.
‘I’m not sure what their home supporters think when they defend so deeply at home, but for us, we care more for ourselves and our game and see what we can do better for our next game.’
Getting a handle on exactly where Celtic are at in Europe this season is not easy.
That they are a better side than the one that finished bottom of their four-team group in each of the past two seasons is not up for debate.
They put five goals past Slovan Bratislava and played RB Leipzig off the park. A point taken at the home of Europa League holders Atalanta was a tremendous result.
But then you go back to the disaster in Dortmund and the no-show that was the first-half display at home to Brugge. Maybe Celtic’s true level is somewhere in between? Closer to what we witnessed in Zagreb, in other words.
Daizen Maeda was not the only frustrated Celtic attacker as they failed to find a way through
And if that’s the case, there’s a lot of work to do before the team can entertain ambitions of one day troubling the latter stages of the tournament.
In there here and now, though, Celtic do remain on course to make it to the playoff round of this year’s competition.
Nine points, a commendable total at this juncture by any measure, may already be enough to see them through.
Leipzig’s home loss to Aston Villa on Tuesday was their sixth on the spin and ensured they suffered the ignominy of becoming the first side to be eliminated.
With 24 sides from 36 advancing, Rodgers’ men only need another 11 to be incapable of surpassing their tally. It’s an incredibly complicated situation, but it does look promising.
The insurance policy arrives on January 22 when Young Boys travel to Parkhead. The Swiss are presently sitting ninth in the Swiss Super League, their hopes of retaining the title already seemingly over.
Without a point in the Champions League before they faced Stuttgart in Germany last night, their claim to being a club in crisis is also wholly justified.
All things being equal, Rodgers’ side should beat them and then view the trip to face Aston Villa as something of a free hit in terms of possibly yet gatecrashing the top eight.
But it really shouldn’t have come to this. After a missed opportunity, Celtic are now digging out the calculators when they should have been lighting the cigars.
