The Game Is Over, The Rebels Have Won ☭.
By: Soviet Celtic
Tags: Football, Scotland, Communism, Celtic Fc, Sports

Every socialist would sympathise with the victory of the oppressed — Lenin.

It was a quite euphoric experience to wash away not only the falsehoods and hysteria; but to be given a visual, unequivocal reminder of our teams domestic dominance.

It should be obvious. Simply look at the playing staff at Celtic FC. Look at their major honours. Look at their undeniable achievements. Look at their ability to deliver trophy after trophy to the Celtic fans. This is a team of winners with a mentality beyond your average player. The absurdity that they went into this fixture with odds of 21/10 should be forever remembered.

Nevertheless, football is a game of philosophies with many variables. A simulation of warfare primarily won and lost on strategy. There is, however, an element out with this that can regularly be forgotten, or even dismissed as unnecessary, inefficient and emotionally charged. An engagement of no value to certain managers and coaches. That, my comrades, would be the idea of 1v1 battles across the pitch.

It is a fairly traditional view lacking of sophistication. Gerrard adopts this style when playing the mighty Celtic. It is the notion that if each man wins their 1v1 battle then victory is inevitable. This strategy, I feel, allows for too much focus on the ball and the man who has the ball and not enough focus on the space. It makes for an ordinary, albeit competitive affair. Watch Sunday’s game closely, comrades. Have you ever seen so many shirts pulled, exuberant tackles, a perpetual frantic chasing of the ball on a professional stage for the last decade? It should be expected on a Sunday afternoon. Not a match televised to millions of people across the world.

Gerrard implements this as he knows it is his only way to victory. He knows, as well he should, that Celtic are ahead of his team — in terms of footballing ability at least — by quite a margin. He has tried to close this apparent gap with the psychology of aggression and willingness. Desire. Hunger. Passion etc.

Unfortunately for him, the Celtic dugout contains a man that is most definitely comfortable operating in that domain. The much maligned Celtic boss is forever being disrespected by the media and fans alike. Let us remember that this is, after all, a man who has faced the very best, at the highest level. He knows better than any what the fundamentals of victory are — he has been there and experienced it. For what he lacks in sophistication he makes up for in his knowledge of the sport and hunger to win. He instructed each member of the Celtic team to get the better of their counterpart on Sunday, and it was successful.

It should be known that I am not fond of this outlook. Football is a team game. The team must work as one symbiotic collective. The highlighting of individual errors will always makes me uncomfortable. Having said this, I must commend the Celtic players and the manager for going for a somewhat hybrid approach.

From the first whistle our intention was clear: make them uncomfortable. Our last two visits to Ibrox were too passive and placid; seemingly wanting to avoid conflict or fiery instances, instead opting (or hoping) that their superior talent and style of play would prevail. Sadly on those occasions it didn’t yield a positive result. Something had to change.

Comrade Lenin, we must thank you. You took a very strong team of excellent footballers and instilled in them something that we had never seen before: a willingness to win ugly and play them at their own — in large spells — Sunday League game.

Celtic’s class was too bright in the end and the brief moments of any quality in the game put the zombies to the sword. This is what Lenin must be praised for. He had the confidence to, on the one had subjugate our more expansive and successful possession based style, whilst igniting on the other hand a physical, dominant and altogether more conservative philosophy than we are used to seeing. It worked. They played with fear from the first kick.

The excellence of this strategy was in the fact that Celtic can, when the opportunity arises, punish teams with exceptional play almost at will. The risk is you surrender too much control of the ball — something Rodgers could never bring himself to do.

On Sunday Celtic didn’t need to enforce this obsession with the ball. We knew we could hurt them without it, pick and choose when to retain it, and — most vitally — stay solid defensively without it. Everything was achieved.

Not only that but the excessive goading of Alfredo Morelos by Fraser Forster was quite delightful. The aggression shown by Christopher Jullien throughout the game and his fury at the Colombian cowards stamp on his foot was a joy for all to see.

We must also give praise to our captain Scott Brown as he was key in this. I have been critical of him because I am an idealist. I want football to be played in a certain way, a way which sees Scott Brown no longer on the teamsheet. I do, however, have the utmost respect and on Sunday he shut my Soviet mouth.

The gulf in class was on display fully and one could argue Celtic didn’t even produce anything that was out of their 2nd gear. A truly dominant and satisfying days work made sweeter by the absurd, almost comical build up.

Finally, I would like to thank Jordan ‘WATP’ Jones for giving we, the Celtic fans, a little bonus at the end. A torn ACL + a sending off? You spoil us. You really, really spoil us.

Victory was all that mattered. Victory is what we achieved. Victory was what we deserved. Enjoy it.

There is only one way to silence the propaganda machine: to smash your opponents on the field and leave them in pieces. To this they have no reply.

Слава! ☭