Given that the goalkeeper ended up hitting a penalty before Alistair Johnston, it was probably a fair indication that the Canadian wasn’t all that keen to step up to the spot during Saturday’s dramatic shootout victory for Celtic over Aberdeen.
As it transpired, the right back still had to take one, and his calm finish belied the nerves he later revealed he was feeling at the time. He doesn’t blame Joe Hart though for missing his own penalty and subsequently putting him through the mill, but rather, Cameron Carter-Vickers for jinxing his colleague with his over confidence.
Footballers are renowned for being a superstitious lot, and it seems Johnston is no different. And as soon as Carter-Vickers predicted that the soon-to-be retiring Hart was about to have a fairytale moment, he suspected that he may well have to go through his own personal nightmare.
“I was just begging for the final whistle and then, of course, they scored,” Johnston said.
“My first thought was, ‘I’m going to have to take a penalty. I’m just happy that thing went it.
READ MORE: Why letting ‘maniac’ Joe Hart hit a penalty was always part of Celtic plan
“There was relief when Joe made the save [from Killian Phillips]. He had the chance to win, and big Carter-Vickers said, ‘This is going to be a fairytale for Joe’. I said, ‘You can’t say that out loud, you’ve jinxed it’. Then, he hit the post.
“I knew I was going to take the sixth penalty and that I was next. Cheers mate.
“When he saved that final one it was relief. Joe is so good at those. He’s in great form. He fancies himself as a penalty taker so that will hurt his ego a little that he’s dragged that one! He thinks he’s hit it well.
“He was always down to take the fifth penalty, that was always the plan. They gave us the list straight away. After that it was a case of, ‘Who wants one?’
“To be fair, that’s all keepers do in training sessions, take penalties into each other! I was actually pretty confident when he went up. I thought he was just going to hit it like a goal kick and rip one.
“I was a little surprised when he went for the corner because in training, he probably is our best penalty taker.”
In the end, it didn’t really matter how Celtic got over the line. That they had twice lost equalisers in the dying moments of both regulation and extra time. Or, that they had spurned that opportunity through Hart to finally kill Aberdeen off in the penalty shootout.
Hart’s save from Phillips means they will contest the Scottish Cup Final once more in late May, by which time they may well also have been crowned Premiership champions again too.
This may have been a season of ups and downs for Rodgers and his men – a campaign that was rather distilled into 120 minutes of mayhem on Saturday – but they are in a prime position to end it just as successfully as the clash with Aberdeen ultimately did.
If, by hook or by crook, they end up with two trophies in the cabinet come the end of the season, then no one will dwell too long on what came before.
“The most important thing was to get through,” Johnston said.
“Survive and advance, as we call it at home.
“You forget about it. We’ll be back here in four or five weeks with a chance to win a trophy and at Celtic that’s what it’s all about. We’re excited about that.
“It was one where you felt the football gods were on your side a little [on Saturday]. It was just a crazy football match. If we’d lost it on pens I still think we would have been confident [about the league] no matter what. But it’s a nice boost when you get through that.
“We have a lot to look forward to. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We’re going to be back here on May 25th, so now it’s about going into that full of confidence.
“There’s plenty left still to play for.”
The next staging post in Celtic’s push for double glory is Dundee on Sunday, weather permitting, of course.
Johnston has vowed that the Celtic players will be following their manager’s orders not to ‘soften up’ despite the recent league woes of rivals Rangers, and he is hoping the pudding of a Dens Park pitch adopts a similar approach.
“We’re trying to push our limits physically and mentally,” he said.
“It was a battle of attrition at the weekend. It was hot, sticky, 120 minutes and then penalties.
“We’ve played a lot of football this season but we had the will and the gumption to get through. Now we have five games left and a cup final.
“It’s a great opportunity and coming into the final stretch of the season it’s exactly where we want to be.
“It won’t always be five-star performances, it’s about sticking to the script.”
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