BENJAMIN NYGREN admitted he was “devastated” when Celtic were sent crashing out of the Champions League in Kazakhstan 29 days ago.
The versatile Swede, a £1.7million arrival in the summer, saw his dreams of performing among Europe’s elite obliterated in the woeful penalty-kick shoot-out failure against the minnows of Kairat Almaty after two miserable goalless draws.
Adam Idah, Luke McCowan and Daizen Maeda all missed from the spot and that was the end of the Hoops’ hopes of making an impact in football’s most prestigious club competition – plus waving farewell to a £40million windfall.
Now Brendan Rodgers’ players must prove themselves all over again in the Europa League opener when they face Red Star Belgrade in the Serbian capital this evening.
SWEDE DREAMS…Benjamin Nygren is determined to overcome the Champions League disappointment.
Clearly, Nygren is not one to dwell on what-might-have-been as he prepares for the encounter in a hostile environment.
Reflecting on the embarrassing dismissal against the team rated 311th in the UEFA rankings, the midfielder, with masterly understatement, said: “It didn’t go as we wanted.
“However, it doesn’t do any of us any good to live in the past.
“We need to look forward and do as well as we can in all of the competitions we are in now. That’s our focus.
“For myself, it’s one of my biggest dreams to play in the Champions League.
“I was devastated that we didn’t manage to achieve that.
“But now we’re in the Europa League, we play a lot of good teams and I have hopes that the team can do well in this competition and go far.”
EAR WE GO…Benjamin Nygren celebrates the second of his double in the 3-0 win over Livingston.
The Hoops kick off their games under the lights in the east end of Glasgow against Sporting Braga a week tomorrow and will also host Sturm Graz, Roma and Utrecht with other away matches due against FC Midtjylland, Feyenoord and Bologna.
Viewing the upcoming challenges, Nygren, speaking to Celtic TV, continued: “Yes, we are going to face a lot of very good teams who normally play in the Champions League.
“I’m looking forward to it a lot. We will do as good as we can. It’s hard to say how far we can go. We have to focus game by game.
“Now we have eight games and we will do as well as possible to get through to the next stage and then we’ll see.
“I think it’s a bit silly to try to set some points target. Every game we go into our goal is to win. And that’s it.”
Nygren is ready to play his part in the partizan arena in Belgrade and added: “I’ve heard a lot about this place. It’s going to be an amazing atmosphere.
WELCOME TO THE GLASGOW DERBY…Benjamin Nygren (second left) acknowledges the Celtic fans after the goalless draw at Ibrox. Joining in are Liam Scales, James Forrest, Daizen Maeda, Shin Yamada and Callum McGregor.
“It’s what you dream of as a kid. That’s why you want to be a footballer to play in front of these crowds.
“I don’t think anyone in this team wants to play in front of zero crowds.
“We play at Celtic Park in front of 60,000 every week, so we know how it is. We have a lot of confidence. We’re Celtic players, so we know how good we are.
“We’ve had some games where we didn’t do as well as we wanted, but that’s in the past and now the focus is on the future.”
*DON’T miss the unbeatable match report from Red Star Belgrade v Celtic this evening – only in your champion CQN.
