Celtic plan seismic UCL shock that will get Europe talking as Bayern pay club a compliment hiding in plain sight

Callum McGregor insists Celtic are capable of turning it up to the max in Munich by producing the biggest performance of his lengthy Hoops career as they aim to keep their Champions League last 16 dreams alive.

The Parkhead skipper is convinced his team mates have proved they can get the better of runaway Bundesliga pacesetters Bayern in Tuesday night’s play-off second leg in Germany, with Celtic needing to overturn last week’s 2-1 defeat in Glasgow’s east end.

McGregor, who scored the opening goal in Saturday’s 3-0 Premiership win over Dundee United, knows Celtic are up against it and is aware it will require one of the best displays of his time at the club. But he has full belief in manager Brendan Rodgers’ game plan after the Scottish champions rattled the German giants in the closing stages of the first leg.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said. “I think we have to max out in terms of performance level, and there’s no reason why we can’t. Having seen what we’ve seen in the first game, yes, we need a bit of luck and we need to be really good on the night.

“But like I said, we just go and we leave nothing on the pitch and see where we go from there. It would be brilliant, obviously, and that’s the aim now. I want us to come off with no regrets and see where we can get to.

“Obviously, we’re still right in the game. When you get to these games, everybody’s got to believe you can win. And even the way the game played out, there were very small margins and on another night, with a different referee, who knows?

“The No.1 aspect was that the performance was there, we’re still in the game. I think if one of the big teams loses 2-1, then everybody still thinks they’re in the tie, so I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t feel that way. Especially the last 25 minutes, that gives us a good template for the game.

“They knew they were in a game - you see at the end, their reaction when the whistle goes, they were happy to get over the line. That’s a big compliment when top players are celebrating winning the game when the final whistle goes, you see how much it means to them.

“What we did in the last 25 minutes, we made them defend, we created really good situations and maybe on another night we could have got something. It gives us good belief. If we can have a wee bit more of the ball, and make them defend, then you see that we could be good. That has to be the mindset when we arrive into Tuesday night, we give it absolutely everything we’ve got and we leave nothing on the pitch, and see where we go.”

Celtic have made other European big guns take note of their performances in the Champions League this season, but McGregor is aiming to go one step further and pull off the kind of monumental result that will get the whole of Europe talking.

“That’s it,” he added. “We’ll only do that by results. Probably first and foremost, results are what makes people sit up and say, right, we’ll watch the game and see why. The performance level has got to be there, but results have got to be there as well, and that’s what we’ve done I think.

“There’s been a few results that maybe people watching the Champions League scores coming in have looked and thought,’ right, OK, what’s going here, Celtic have got a result, let’s have a look at the game’. And then, when teams like Bayern turn up, they give you respect because you’ve beat Leipzig, you’ve drawn against Atalanta, really top teams. That’s on us to keep improving and keep trying to narrow that gap as much as we can.”

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