JOSIP JURANOVIC has revealed his chat with Luka Modric after his Croatia team-mate had put on a midfield masterclass in Real Madrid’s 3-0 Champions League victory at Parkhead.
The little general, who celebrated his 37th birthday on Friday, was outstanding as he pulled the strings and joined in the second-half scoring spurt with an eye-catching effort for No.2.
The Celtic fans rose to acclaim Modric when he came off near the end with his job done and three points sealed for the European champions.
OOPS…Josip Juranovic can only look on as Vinicius Junior drills the opening goal beyond the exposed Joe Hart.
Juranovic said: “I spoke with him after the game. He was telling me that the crowd was amazing and that we played good, first-half especially, and that we need to continue like that.
“What can I say? He’s captain of my national team, a really good person and you saw that he’s a really good player, too.
“The first-half we take it very serious, we have our chances, Callum hit the post, unfortunately, and then second-half with Daizen we didn’t score and, of course, it’s Real Madrid.
“If we have our chances and don’t score they will have one and score from it immediately.
“If we take the first-half into our next games, there’s much positive to take from that. We need to delete this second-half because they didn’t have full chances, it was like half-chances but they took them and we didn’t – that’s all.”
AGONY…Ange Postecoglou holds his head as a chance goes astray.
Ange Postecoglou’s team had gone into the glamour occasion under the lights in the east end of Glasgow in a positive frame of mind after hitting 29 goals in seven games on their way to a 100 per cent domestic record.
Liel Abada had an excellent opportunity to open the scoring in the 12th minute when he was set up by a laser beam pass from Filipe Jota, but, unfortunately, the Israeli winger, so deadly in the previous games against Dundee United and the Ibrox outfit when he struck five times, blazed a shot straight at Thibuat Courtois with all the goal to shoot at.
Callum McGregor clattered a 20-yarder off the inside of the right-hand post and two minutes into the second-half Daizen Maeda made a mess of a gift from eight yards when he tamely mishit a Juranovic pass that was picked up by the relieved keeper when he should have been retrieving the ball from the back of the net.
Juranovic, speaking to the Glasgow Times, continued: “It’s not usual. We gave everything to this match, but we didn’t take our chances.
“We need to look at the video and then we will talk with our manager and see what we need to do.
“However, our confidence is still really high.”
GLASGOW BELONGS TO ME…Luka Modric celebrates a five-star performance at Parkhead.
On Tuesday, Juranovic returns to a ground he knows well after one year with Legia Warsaw following his move from Hajduk Split when the Hoops take on Shakhtar Donetsk in the second Group F encounter.
The Ukrainians go into the game on the back of a shock 4-1 triumph on their travels against RB Leipzig when former Celtic flop Maria Shved netted a double.
Juranovic has his mind set on an away day success and added: “Why a point? We need to get three. That’s for me the highest priority.
“We need to prepare ourselves for it. Poland is now my third country, I am looking forward to going back and we need to take three points.”
“Again we will have our fans with us, if not in the stadium then in our minds because we need to give them something.
“We have had a really good start to the season and because of that our confidence is high and especially after the first-half against Madrid. If we continue like that then we can take some points.
“We will fight for second place, but if we perform like we did in the first-half, then we don’t need to be scared.”
