BRENDAN RODGERS saw Celtic’s hopes of a sixth treble in nine years collapse in the Scottish Cup Final penalty-kick shoot-out loss to Aberdeen at Hampden yesterday.
On a personal note, the Irishman also missed the opportunity of overtaking the legendary Jock Stein with a third domestic clean sweep.
The champions looked on course for another silverware celebration as they held a one-goal lead – a first-half deflection from defender Alfie Dorrington – until an 83rd-minute misjudgement from experienced Kasper Schmeichel to gift the Dons an equaliser.
Arne Engels and Jeffrey Schlupp had both hit the woodwork before the encounter was forced into a spot-kick decider, the Hoops’ second at the venue this season.
The Parkhead men overcame Rangers 5-4 in the Premier Sports League Cup showpiece in December, but, alas, they lost 4-3 on this occasion following misses from skipper Callum McGregor and Alistair Johnston.
Reflecting on his first-ever loss at the national stadium, Rodgers remarked: “I just said to the players in terms of the game itself, we can have no complaints really because when you don’t create so much, then that’s what can happen.
“You put yourself in a position where you can win it or lose it. Sadly for us, we lost it.
“But the bigger picture is that we won two out of three titles this season, the players have given me everything and given the club everything.
“Now they need to go away and be with their families, because their families need them now and they’ll need them. Then we get to the summer and look to regroup and get excited by next season.”
The Hoops gaffer, speaking to Celtic TV, continued: “I don’t think our offensive, attacking play was anywhere to the standard of what we’ve been a lot of the season.
“So, when you’re like that, you can either win the game or lose the game and, unfortunately for us, we lost it.
“But congratulations to Aberdeen. They pick up the trophy and we’re on the wrong side of it which hasn’t happened so often.
“None of this is given to you. You really have to earn it and we just didn’t do enough to earn that. Our other titles – we’ve won two out of the three domestic titles this year – and we’ve definitely earned them.
“So, again, it’s just a reference to how tough it is to win trophies and how good this team and this club have been over a number of years.
“So days like this are part of football. It’s not nice, but it’ll allow us to renew the motivation again going into summer.”
Rodgers added: “We wanted nothing more than to give the Celtic fans that feeling of winning again and to take that through into the summer.
“We’ve given everything and I want to thank them for all the support they’ve given us throughout the season.
“They turned out and gave us everything, so we’re just sorry that we couldn’t bring the trophy back to Celtic Park.”
