MIKAEL LUSTIG insists Celtic will not be three-times losers when they take on Hapoel Be’er Sheva tomorrow night.
The Swede has seen the Hoops agonisingly fail in the past two season as they crashed out at this stage against Maribor and then Malmo with Ronny Deila in charge.
Lustig, though, believes the Hoops, with a 5-2 first leg advantage, won’t falter on this occasion. The defender, who was rested in the 4-2 win over St Johnstone after a slight ankle knock, said: “Getting to the Champions League is overdue.
“We have been close before so we know what to do. It will be a tough game, but, hopefully, we have learned something and are more mature now.
“I don’t know, maybe it was because we played really well against Motherwell the other week, but we know we have guys who can score, who can do that little bit extra.
“It is not as if we need luck to score goals any more. For example, James Forrest was unbelievable, Tom Rogic in the hole, Leigh Griffiths scoring good goals, Scott Sinclair on the other side and Moussa Dembele coming in.
“We have proved that we have more players who can do things.
“Overall, we played very good football last week. We had a bad five minutes when they scored two goals, but the first 45 minutes was amazing.”
Lustig added: “I think it was a testament to the mentality that we have got that we went on and scored another two goals against Hapoel- especially after what happened last year against Malmo.
“I didn’t play the second game against Malmo, but, of course, it was a really hard knock for me.
“The feeling in the first half against Malmo was quite the same, I think we played very very well against them, too. But goals change the game and change the mentality.
“We have just proved that we have come on a bit further now. We always want to score more goals, so we really went for it and we did it.”
