Celtic must swiftly recover from their crushing 7-1 defeat in Dortmund, according to former footballing great Peter Schmeichel, who urged Brendan Rodgers’ side not to let the result derail their otherwise excellent start to the season.
Rodgers’ Celtic team had travelled to Signal Iduna Park in good spirits, having made a perfect start to their 2024/25 campaign, which included a commanding 5-1 victory over Slovan Bratislava in their opening Champions League fixture. However, they were quickly overwhelmed by a ruthless Borussia Dortmund side.
The Scottish champions briefly found hope when Daizen Maeda equalised Emre Can’s early penalty, but they soon crumbled under Dortmund’s relentless pressure.
A first-half hat-trick from Karim Adeyemi left Celtic trailing 4-1 by the break, and two goals from Serhou Guirassy, followed by a late Felix Nmecha strike, sealed a comprehensive win for the Bundesliga outfit.
Speaking after the game, former Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, father of Celtic’s current shot-stopper Kasper Schmeichel, stressed the importance of quickly putting the defeat behind them. He warned Celtic not to dwell on the heavy loss, as he also made an emotional plea to his son.
“It really is difficult,” Schmeichel reflected. “You always want the best for your children, no matter what circumstance they find themselves in. It was just one of those days that you can never, ever explain.
“There were so many shots and so many of them went in – there could have been even more. As Callum McGregor said to me earlier, it was just one of those days where you couldn’t get close enough to it.”
Despite the crushing nature of the defeat, Schmeichel found room for humour, sharing a light-hearted moment with Dortmund’s hat-trick hero Adeyemi.
“I’ll never forgive you for what you did to my boy today!” he joked, before offering high praise for the forward’s performance.
Schmeichel senior also revealed the advice he gave to his son following the defeat. Speaking candidly, he admitted their post-match conversation was focused on moving past the result.
“I spoke to Kasper after the game,” he said.
“I told him, ‘This was a bad day at the office and nothing more. You concede seven goals. I did this once in my life, and you come away thinking you probably couldn’t have done much about all seven, but you still conceded seven, and my job is to stop the goals.’
“Of course, you’re going to look at it, but you have to take it and move on. Be one of the leaders in the dressing room and help everyone else learn from this.
“Because up until this point, let’s not forget, Celtic have played really, really good football, and there is so much optimism at the club. You need to go through what happened, but it was just a bad day at the office.”
Despite the painful loss, Schmeichel emphasised that Celtic must not lose sight of their strong early season form, urging the team to learn from the defeat and refocus as they look ahead to their next fixtures.