IT was no great surprise to seasoned followers of Scottish football when Celtic scored a winner in the seventh minute of injury-time in their cinch Premiership match against Motherwell at Fir Park on Saturday afternoon.
The Parkhead club, who moved seven points clear of Rangers at the top of the league table as a result of the hard-fought triumph, have had an uncanny knack of clinching important victories with late, late goals in the past couple of seasons.
But Callum McGregor is well aware that Lazio, who the Scottish champions will face in their second Champions League group stage match in Glasgow this evening, are the kind of opponents who will not give up until the final whistle blows as well.
READ MORE: Callum McGregor taking inspiration from a Celtic double ahead of Lazio
He sat down and watched all of the Italians’ opening Group E encounter with Atletico Madrid in the Olympic Stadium in Rome when he had returned from the Celtic match against Feyenoord in the De Kuip in Rotterdam a fortnight ago.
The Scotland midfielder was greatly impressed with how Maurizio Sarri’s men – who earned a 1-1 draw when they equalised through goalkeeper Ivan Provedel in the 95th minute – acquitted themselves against Diego Simeone's charges and is not taking suggestions they are not at their best seriously.
Lazio have won just two of their seven Serie A matches this season and are currently in 16th place in the league table - and manager Sarri has been involved in a public war of words with president Claudio Lotito over their transfer business this summer.
But McGregor sensed the same sort of togetherness in the Lazio squad that exists in the Celtic camp when he watched their opening Champions League outing.
“The late goals and that never-say-die attitude is something we’ve been built on in my entire time here,” he said. “We always continue pushing to the end. You think back to Tony Ralston’s winner at Ross County.
“You need that spirit in the group. You keep going, you never give up. And if you stick to your structure . . . Look at Saturday. The goal comes from a winger trying to get in at the back post, he drags the boy in and Matt (O’Riley) has a great finish.
“It’s about disorganising the back line. It’s about staying calm under pressure. You need all those qualities and thankfully we have that.”
READ MORE: Celtic face Lazio at a good time but Sarri's side will still be tough
McGregor added: “But Lazio have that for sure. I watched their game against Atletico and they were well in the game. Atletico probably started the game better, but in the second half they deserved their goal. If you go and draw with a team like Atletico Madrid you have to respect that.
“You are playing against a really top team. That league is ultra-competitive just now. There is probably five or six teams that can go and win the league. They are playing at a really good level and it would be silly for anyone to disrespect them because they had a slower start than normal. For sure, we have done our homework and we know they are a top side.”
Meanwhile, McGregor has paid a glowing tribute to Tom Rogic, the player he replaced in Celtic’s last Champions League victory against Anderlecht back in 2017, after the Australian internationalist announced he had retired from football.
“He was special,” he said. “He was a really top player who delivered probably one of the most iconic moments for the club in terms of the cup final moment against Aberdeen to do the treble (Rogic scored an injury-time winner against Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup final in 2017).
"He will be remembered really fondly by the supporters as well as the guys who have worked with him as well. He is a top guy and someone who I wish all the happiness in the world to for him and his family. He is obviously decided to step away from football and I am sure he can look back on his career with a lot of pride.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here