Jiri Jarosik is not the first to be confounded by the wildly contrasting nature of Celtic's home and away form. The Czech midfielder made his first appearance for six months in the home leg against AC Milan at Parkhead in October, which Celtic won 2-1.
In Wednesday's meeting with the Rossoneri at the San Siro, he was one of his side's better players but ultimately ended up on the losing side after Filippo Inzaghi's strike proved insurmountable.
Jarosik jokingly admitted that Celtic, who reached the last 16 courtsy of Benfica beating Shakhtar Donetsk, could make even further progress in the tournament if only they could play all their games at home. "No-one is going to want to come to Celtic Park so maybe if we have two home games we can qualify," he smiled.
Celtic were disconsolate after going down in Milan, despite their overall progression, and Jarosik admitted it was a bittersweet experience. "There are only one or two positives because this was not a good game for me or the team. We lost the match and we didn't play well. The big positive is that it is great progress for the team to reach the second stage again. For a long time, Celtic didn't play Champions League football so it shows great progress that we've done it twice in a row."
The Czech midfielder was straining at the leash to leave the club in the last transfer window but has regained his place in the team and now has an incentive to remain beyond January, with the last-16 ties starting the following month. "It's important for me and the club because the last-16 game is in February. I don't why we're so much better at home but we have to start looking to play as well away as we do at home if we are going to make progress."
Jarosik has amassed plentiful experience on the European stage, but admitted his time with Celtic have been unique. "Every team I played with in the Champions League - CSKA Moscow, Chelsea and Sparta Prague - was different but Celtic are so good at home which is a big difference from the clubs I was with before."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article