TRUE GRIT Arne Engels has discovered very quickly what it means to be a Celtic player.
The smooth midfield operator stepped onto soccer’s rollercoaster on deadline day when he signed a four-year contract to seal the champions’ £11million record purchase.
Engels has already experienced the exhilarating highs of Champions League nights under the lights in the east end of Glasgow, the devastating low of a 7-1 mauling on the team’s travels, the ecstasy of a derby triumph and the agony of a defeat in the same fixture.
Along the way, the 21-year-old Belgian international has picked up his first medal in the Hoops’ dramatic penalty-kick shoot-out in the Premier Sports League Cup Final against Philippe Clement’s Ibrox also-rans.
GLOVE AFFAIR…Arne Engels has settle in well at Celtic.
Following the conclusion of a see-sawing showpiece showdown that was tied at 3-3 after extra-time, Engels was one of the five Hoops stars to make an impeccable job from the spot while Kasper Schmeichel denied Ridvan Yilmaz to claim Celtic’s 119th piece of silverware to make them the world’s most successful club.
Plus there was the shocking incident at Ibrox last week when the player was struck just above the left eye by a missile thrown by a moron from the crowd. Welcome to the all-Glasgow confrontation, young man!
But Engels is not the sort to be intimidated and he insists he is focused on taking care of business for Brendan Rodgers’ side on the park with a first Premiership medal in his line of sights.
The lavishly-gifted playmaker takes a breath after an exhausting four months-plus in Scotland since arriving from Bundesliga outfit Augsburg and admits: “I like the pressure.
“It puts me on the top of my toes to perform and I think everybody has it here inside of the building – everybody needs a bit of pressure and everybody is on top of their performance when they feel it.
“Those are also things that you see in the Champions League, when the pressure is there, then everybody is standing up and performing and doing really well.
“For me, it’s a really nice thing to experience the pressure here and to perform.”
OOPS…Arne Engels spots a flaw.
It wasn’t such a pleasurable occasion in his first away derby when he was sick on the morning of the game after being pencilled in to start alongside Callum McGregor and Reo Hatate.
However, after a bug had made its presence known at breakfast, the player dropped to the stand-by squad with Paulo Bernardo stepping up.
Engels had to wait until the 75th minute to make an appearance when he replaced a toiling Hatate and by then the game was lost after a mystifyingly passive performance from Rodgers’ men.
The big-money man, speaking to the Daily Record, continued: “Every time when you lose, you’re disappointed. You’re disappointed in yourself and in the team. So, we knew that we could do a lot of things better.
“In the morning I threw up my breakfast. I had a not really nice feeling in my stomach the whole day. The most important thing is you need 11 or 15 players who are really energetic. I wanted to be there for the team in the end.”
Reflecting on the idiotic missile-throwing from a moron, Engels commented: “Of course, these things shouldn’t be happening. You’re on a football pitch and that needs to be a safe place.
“You’ll always have people who are saying things to you or something, but that’s normal, that’s part of football. But throwing things or doing stuff like that is not really part of football for me.
“It’s a shock when something goes onto your head and after the shock it was also sore. But, like I said in the end, you need to still play those 10 minutes and still need to focus on that and still need to perform.
A BHOY ALONE…Arne Engels at Hampden on his way to his first medal with Celtic.
“So, there was not really time to think about it. It hit my eyebrow, so it was really close to my eye. I was lucky that it was not on my eye. Of course, your first reaction is feeling if everything is okay or is there blood or something.
“Once I did that, then it was okay. I stood up and just moved on. My parents were watching on TV at home, so they looked at all the replays. It was not really nice for them to see. They were also a bit worried.
“They also saw me keeping on and moving on and still playing those 10 minutes. They knew that it was okay.”
Off the pitch, Engels paid a tribute to his new colleagues and added: “All the team-mates here are so nice to me and helping me in each way. Integrating into the group was really easy for me.
“Also, in those kind of moments [Ibrox], you see that we are a team, that everybody is concerned about you and wants you to do good. That’s a very nice feeling we have in the dressing room.
‘Yes, 100 per cent these things make us even more determined. It’s like bouncing back. We are really good at it and everybody was speaking to each other and everybody was really, really disappointed in the performance.
“That makes it a really, really good squad and everybody is really determined to win it again.
‘For me, it would be my first time, but everybody is so focused on that, on the goals that we put ourselves at the beginning of the season. Everybody is working every day really hard to get those goals together.”
Engels will step up to the plate again when Dundee United provide the opposition at Parkhead on a night where a victory will propel Celtic an amazing SIXTEEN points ahead in their pursuit of a fourth successive title.
*DON’T miss the unbeatable match report from Celtic v Dundee United this evening – only in your champion CQN.
