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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Ewan Paton

Kasper Schmeichel happy to be the unlikely Celtic creator

Kasper Schmeichel was happy to help be the creator for Celtic as they earned a valuable Champions League point tonight.

The veteran goalkeeper kept a clean sheet in Bergamo as the Scottish Premiership champions left Italy with a hard-fought 0-0 draw.

While keeping Atalanta's attackers at bay was of upmost importance to the Danish international, Schmeichel also saw plenty of the ball in the Champions League tie.

And the 37-year-old admits it's something he and the team had been working on.

"It was a tough game, we knew it was going to be a tough game coming here, so we knew that we had to learn from the Dortmund game and we had to defend for our lives, and we did that," the former Premier League winner said.  

"Very proud of the boys, I think it was an incredible defensive performance when we then did have the ball, we did carve out some chances, but it's always going to be tough against Atalanta. 

"I think they're the highest scoring team in Europe at home, or at least in Italian football, so to come here and get a point I think is a good point.


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"Obviously, we took a little bit more practical approach in this one, where we took a few less chances in the build-up because of their system, their man-to-man system, we tried to exploit that a couple of times, it worked, but it's always going to be difficult coming away from home in Europe against a system that's so aggressive, but I thought we did all right.

"I think particularly when you play a team that plays man-for-man like they do, I'm always going to be the spare man when we're in possession, so it's important that we try and create spaces, we try and create openings, and that's obviously going to be me on the ball a lot of the time, and as soon as someone jumps onto me, there's going to be a spare man somewhere.

"So it puts a lot of emphasis on the keeper to try and be creative with the ball.

"It works sometimes, it doesn't always work, but it's one of those things as a keeper, you've got to try and see solutions, find solutions, be creative and see if you can get out of that for us."

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