Carl Starfelt was crushed as injury threatened to completely deny him his big Champions League chance. But the Swedish star finally got back in time for an outing against the mighty Real Madrid.
And the centre-back is now fixated on doing the business domestically again to get back in among Europe’s elite having tasted the rarefied air for a first time in the Bernabeu. Starfelt returned from a two-month long absence to face the kings of the continent in Celtic ’s final game in Group F.
For the first five matches of the section, he’d been painfully stuck on the sidelines. When injury struck during a 4-0 win over Rangers at the start of September – just three days before the first meeting with the Spanish superstars – Starfelt believed his big chance to play in the competition this season may have disappeared. He said: “The timing of my injury was awful because I, basically, missed a full Champions League campaign. I got injured three days before the first game against Real Madrid against Rangers. That was a really hard moment for me personally.
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“I had just come back from an injury. I’d been injured a full pre-season and then came back and played three games, scored two goals and got injured again.
“It was not a good time for me but these are the things you have to accept in football. There is nothing we can do about it.
“I’ve been working really hard in the gym to get back as soon as possible and I am happy I at least got to play one game – even if it didn’t end so good. That was my first Champions League game.
“I’ve been working so hard for this moment against Real. We are really disappointed with the result, we could at least have made it a little bit closer. It is what it is.”
Starfelt could barely have picked a tougher return. In facing Vinicius Junior and then Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema when he came on as a sub with just under half an hour to go, the Swede had a huge task. He said: “It was a tough game to come back from injury. They were a really good team and a very tough game but I’m happy to be back. I’ve been working hard to get back to playing games for two months. My body felt better than I thought, so that’s a positive.
“I feel pretty good. Physically I’m not 100 per cent fit – I felt that when I played. I feel I have some way to go. After the World Cup break you will see me playing my best football and at 100 per cent.”
Real took full advantage of any mistakes made by Starfelt and the Hoops backline as they cracked home five goals. The 27-year-old added: “They are such a good team. They start the game with quality players and then they bring on Benzema. It’s not what you want to see.
“But you have to give credit to them, especially when you see the quality of the goals. We tried to play our football and we did it in large parts of the game. But we were punished extremely by a very good team with quality players.
“We didn’t take our chances either, which has been a little bit characteristic for our Champions League games this year. We have learned a lot from it and it’s really important to get experience of the Champions League. We need to play in these games because we don’t get that exposure so often when we face Scottish teams.
“It’s very good for us to get these games. Hopefully we will win the league now and play again next season.”
With European football gone for the season, the task is to win a second successive title and ensure Celtic go straight back into the Champions League. He said: “It’s really important for us to win the league. This is where we want to be.”
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