Celtic ace lifts lid on Bayern regret, 'Wolverine blood' and why 'unicorn' teammate can spark Allianz comeback

Goals from Michael Olise and Harry Kane had handed the Bundesliga giants a commanding 2-0 lead in the first leg, but just as hope was seeping away from the hosts, Daizen Maeda’s scrambled strike ten minutes from time lit a fire under Celtic. With Brendan Rodgers’ side driving forward in search of an unlikely equaliser, Bayern were on the ropes.

Ultimately the late comeback that the Celtic Park crowd were hoping for was not forthcoming. However, those dramatic final minutes offered Johnston enough evidence to believe Celtic can ask Bayern some questions in Munich second leg on Tuesday.

“It’s always a feeling out process in the first-half,” reflected Johnston. “I think we probably took a little too long, especially over a two-legged tie. You can’t really waste a minute here, you’ve got the crowd behind you. The crowd was unbelievable. The second-half was much better, we were on the front foot. At this level, if you’re too tentative, teams are going to pick you apart. But it’s 2-1, we’ve given ourselves a chance, no matter how slim people on the outside think it is. Their home record in the Champions League is immense, but we’re still in this and we have to believe that.

“You really do have nothing to lose as an underdog going to Munich. If you score first in any Champions League match, you’re going to give yourself a chance. We can’t waste 45 minutes, like we did [on Wednesday night]. It didn’t feel like we wasted it on the pitch, but now when I look back on it, and you feel how much energy the crowd were giving us, it’s 180 minutes of football - 90 minutes at Celtic Park and 90 minutes in Munich - you need to make every minute at this place count. We need to get a it from the first minute [in Munich].

If there’s one man that Johnston believes can help Celtic turn the tie around, then it’s Japanese forward Maeda, with the Canadian admitting the 27-year-old is a rare breed of footballer that embodies everything it means to play for Celtic.

“It’s great because he single-handedly can get the crowd back into it,” said Johnston. “His double presses, when he presses a full-back then the centre-back, then he’s sprinting up there and back. That kind of stuff. Celtic fans, what I have realised, they love talent, but it is a really blue-collared, working class kind of fan base, and they really appreciate seeing guys going out there and giving it every last bit of energy. It is easy when he is doing that for everyone to get behind it. We feed off that energy and it helps us get back into a game.

“The thing is with him [Maeda], all of our guys can cover massive ground. I look at the GPS data a lot of the time. I do a lot of sprint distance, but when you see just the number of sprints that he does. You’d need to sleep in an ice-bath for a week! He’s obviously got hamstrings made of a different material than everybody else. It’s not normal muscle. How sore you would be from all that sprinting. How often he is able to get to that top speed constantly, that’s what leaves the biggest wear and tear on the body. The fact he can do it every three days, it’s a unique trait that don’t find a lot in world football. He is a unicorn in that sense.”

Johnston can take heart from own performance too, after being tasked with marking £44.2million forward Leroy Sane, though he was denied a reunion with his close friend and Canadian international teammate Alphonso Davies, who was ruled out due to a hamstring injury.

“I’m not expecting to see him [Davies] there for the second leg,” smiled Johnston. “But, you never know. He’s got Wolverine blood. I’ve saw him come back from injuries much quicker than the average human. But if he wants to spend another week on the sidelines, I don’t think you’ll see anybody complaining on our side.”

“When you’re doing your scouting, you think is it going to be [Kingsley] Coman or Sane. Whichever one it is, the other one is probably going to come on for the last 30 and you realise it is not going to be an easy night. We do that to teams domestically, we have Nic [Kuhn] starting and then Jota coming on or something like that. There is levels to it, of course. It is always interesting at this level. World class players after world class players and they all pose their own threat.

“You see their physical side. The ability to cover ground and get in amongst it, but it’s the confidence in their passing. It’s passes that we can all make, but you have to have the belief that you can do it, some of the little clip balls that just take out our press. I could play that ball, but I’d play that ball with my nine-year-old cousin in the back garden - I wouldn’t try it in a Champions League match! But they have that quality. There’s a reason they’re on the wages they’re on, and a reason they play at a club like this.”