Head coach Elena Sadiku has vowed to convey Celtic again to the group levels of the Girls’s Champions League and says her facet will “compete higher” than of their first marketing campaign.
The Scottish champions sustained six defeats of their maiden group stage marketing campaign and scored only one aim alongside the best way.
Nonetheless, Sadiku – the youngest ever coach within the males’s or ladies’s Champions League at 31 – believes her facet have grown all through the competitors.
It kicked off 10 weeks in the past with a 2-0 defeat by Twente at house and ended towards the Dutch champions in Enschede by a aim extra.
“First half, we tried to place strain on them and I mentioned to the women, ‘let’s go all in’,” Sadiku advised .
“I feel our lesson realized for after we come again, we now must now evaluate to the Champions League if we actually need to compete at this stage.”
‘Profitable needs to be the motivation’
Sadiku has not even celebrated one 12 months within the job but, however the Swede has already ticked off various firsts.
win again in Could parachuted them to the champions qualifying pathway of Europe’s elite competitors, which they negotiated efficiently for the primary time to succeed in the group levels.
When the draw was made and Girls’s Tremendous League winners Chelsea, Spanish giants Actual Madrid and Dutch champions Twente have been grouped with the Glasgow membership, Celtic confronted an almighty activity to compete.
Whereas the Scottish facet struggled a tad on their travels, solely as soon as did they concede greater than three targets – the 4-0 defeat in Madrid, of which three have been let in within the ultimate 20 minutes.
For big components of that match on the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano and all through the marketing campaign, they’ve probed, prodded and posed a menace to a number of the continent’s most interesting.
Small margins – principally fatigue and slips of focus – have proved expensive, although, which was once more the case towards Twente.
For the hosts’ first, Celtic did not clock and clear a cutback, whereas the 2 unlucky personal targets that adopted have been all the way down to lapses in consideration.
However Sadiku insists competing and studying what it takes to make an influence at this stage will stand them in good stead for future appearances.
“Now we have the information now of what it takes to compete within the Champions League behind our minds,” she mentioned.
“That must be the starvation and motivation each time we practice and play.
“We need to maintain getting even higher so the following time we play within the Champions League we are going to compete higher.”
To do this, Celtic should defend their SWPL title, which their full focus will now return to.
The reigning champions head into their ultimate recreation of the 12 months towards Spartans on Sunday (13:00 GMT) in fifth place and path leaders Glasgow Metropolis by 9 factors, however do have two video games in hand.
After defeat by Actual Madrid final week, Sadiku mentioned she “cannot wait” to return her full focus to home duties and hopes this season’s European expertise will present her staff with much more gasoline to defend their title.
“Within the new 12 months after we come again to regular weeks of coaching, it is all about working arduous and coaching with excessive depth as a result of we must be ready to dominate within the league,” she added.
“We’re robust and we have to imagine in it as properly as a result of I need to be extra profitable with this staff. I need to win all the pieces that we are able to win and that needs to be the motivation.”