Who says familiarity breeds contempt? Not for Arne Engels.
The Belgian international midfielder is living his best life since he joined Celtic. The £11 million man has taken to the club like the proverbial duck to water. Now he's about to strut his stuff in an arena where he has previous experience. Engels made his Augsburg debut in a 4-3 thriller of a loss to Borussia Dortmund in the Signal Iduna Park Stadium. He knows his way around this venue.
The 21-year-old is not on any kind of revenge mission per se but he is aware that it is Champions League nights like this which made him put pen to paper for Celtic in the first place. Engels is adamant that Celtic won't be overawed or intimidated by the famous 'Yellow Wall'. Engels said: "It is amazing to be here as I played here a few times in my career with Augsburg.
"I made my debut here for Augsburg after arriving from the Second Division in Belgium. Playing in front of 80,000 was a great experience and it was a crazy game as it finished 4-3 to Borussia Dortmund. All my family was here for that one and it is an amazing stadium and the atmosphere will be electric and fantastic. I spoke to a lot of players about this atmosphere and the Yellow Wall but we also have an amazing atmosphere at Celtic Park which is kind of the same.
"If you can play at Celtic Park, you can play anywhere!"
Read more:
- Celtic's Engels' 'crazy' memories of playing in Dortmund
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The three key Celtic 'attributes' needed to beat Dortmund
Whilst Engels respects last season's beaten Champions League finalists. There is genuine belief in the Celtic ranks that the Scottish champions can triumph on German soil. He said: "This is a good team that Celtic are playing. They play in a good league and we are well aware of that. I think this is going to be a great game. It is a strong opponent but we are also in a good way.
"It is good that I know the stadium but we know we have to perform and that is what we are doing very well at the moment. We are sticking to the basics and we are in a good place and good mood coming here. I think we have the belief in every game that we can win. If you don't have the belief then you better not come here as you would be better off saying that it will be 5-0 to them. It is not like that. We want to come here and win but that applies to every competition in both the league and the cups. That is the mindset we have for every game.
"Everybody is really focused on their jobs and that makes us very strong as a team. Every day we are setting the standards for ourselves and doing a very good job with that. It is up to us to go out and show it like we do every week. We don't want to make statements we just want to do our best in the competition. We just want to perform and we all need to be sharp. This is a nice bonus that I am playing in the Champions League with Celtic. It is not the only reason why I came here. I came here because this is an amazing club and the fans are excellent.
"It is nice to play in the Champions League and I hope we can do well."
Engels admits that his time with Brendan Rodgers' side thus far has exceeded his lofty expectations. He said: "It has been an amazing few weeks for me since I signed for Celtic. Everyone has been so nice to me and the people at the club, the manager, players and staff are helping me so much. It is a really good feeling for me."
Engels sees the bigger picture at Celtic. So too does Rodgers. They both want Celtic to be competing regularly against elite-level clubs at the top table of European football.
That's the kind of familiarity everybody craves down Glasgow's east end.
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