Hugh Keevins: From invincibility to immortality

By Hugh Keevins (@shinjukushug)

The journey from invincibility to immortality for Celtic took ninety-four minutes and meant negotiating an epic Scottish Cup final. That's the way it should be and respect to Aberdeen for being one half of a titanic struggle for the trophy.

Records are there to be broken. It's an old saying in the game, and one which has frequently been shown to be accurate.

But it's my belief that nobody, including Celtic, will ever replicate what Brendan Rodgers' side has achieved on the domestic front this season.

Three competitions won without a single game being lost.

A League Cup won without conceding a single goal.

A Treble won for only the third time in a club's 129 year history by a manager enjoying his first season at the club.

Martin O'Neill did that last bit as well, but what Rodgers has done will remain un-matched for all time.

The photograph taken on Saturday night which depicted Celtic's principal shareholder, Dermot Desmond, the Chief Executive, Peter Lawwell, and Rodgers was a reminder of why the club is able to celebrate their accomplishments so lavishly.

Successful football management is based on trust.

Desmond and Lawwell had ceased to trust Ronny Deila to do the job they thought he could do at Celtic Park. It was a gamble that failed to come off, other than the Norwegian's ability to get Celtic over the line for league titles number four and five in a row.

They trusted Brendan Rodgers to re-energise a squad which had grown stale and become directionless, and the players the manager inherited trusted the new manager implicitly.

That's why Celtic were able to withstand the loss of Kieran Tierney early on in Saturday's cup final.

Tierney's departure was a massive disruption to Rodgers' game plan but he opted against going like for like and bringing on Christian Gamboa in the full back's place.

And the players trusted his judgement when Callum McGregor was moved from midfield into defence and Tom Rogic was introduced from the subs bench.

To say that Rogic repaid the trust shown in him would be a massive understatement.

That's why the phrase about getting what you pay for, whether it's football managers or anything else, is solidly based. Rodgers is a special talent and has set a bar so high it will never be hurdled by any other side.

Somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind he must also know that Celtic could actually have won the Treble while winning every game they played.

The draw at Inverness was arrived at due to the combination of exceptional goalkeeping from Caley Thistle's Oain Fon Williams and lapsed concentration in Celtic's defence.

The draw with Partick Thistle came about after Scott Sinclair had missed a penalty at one-all.

The draw at Dingwall came after Ross County's Alex Shalk was guilty of the most outrageous act of simulation ever to be missed by several match officials, resulting in the flawed award of a penalty kick.

And the draw with Rangers came when Rodgers' team fell for the hype surrounding the pre-match talk of record scores and ritualistic slaughter while actually forgetting to put in a shift.

It was the one, and only, occasion this season when they allowed their own standards to slip. The rest of the time has been a tribute to diligence, intelligence and a refusal to know when they are beaten.

Aberdeen had their tiring minds and legs focused on extra time at Hampden as regulation time turned to the minutes added on for injury. Celtic still believed there was time left for a winning goal.

At the end of the week which was dedicated to honouring the memory of the Lisbon Lions and their European Cup-winning triumph in Lisbon fifty years ago there were distinct echoes of the past at Hampden.

When Billy McNeill headed the belated winner to beat Dunfermline 3 - 2 in the 1965 Scottish Cup final he not only avoided a replay (no extra time in those days}. The captain was also in at the birth of the modern day Celtic.

Others have, over the years since then, chipped in with last gasp cup winners for Celtic. Think Frank McGarvey and Frank McAvennie, to name but two. What Rogic did on Saturday was to follow tradition.

It's good that some Rangers fans have put their own spin on the weekend by suggesting that Aberdeen's Ryan Jack, Ibrox bound in the coming days, had the beating of Celtic's Scott Brown in midfield.

The captain will answer those claims in his own, inimitable style, I'm sure.

But if the Rangers fans believe they have started to revamp their team in a way that offers a legitimate challenge to Celtic then that's good for business.

What they have to do is contest the theory that, for as long as Rodgers is in charge at Celtic Park, Rangers will be second best. At best.

What the Celtic fans have to understand is that what Rodgers has achieved this season must also rehabilitate his managerial reputation south of the border and beyond.

In the meantime they trust in Brendan to progress at home and in European competition. A Treble shouldn't deceive supporters into thinking the team doesn't need strengthening in key areas for the latter target.

But, for now, this is the stuff that fans' dreams are made of.

When it was put to Rodgers after the game that he had fallen in love with Celtic his reply was, "No. I was born into Celtic."

You can also trust him to have the killer phrase for any occasion.

• Hugh Keevins