Kasper Schmeichel conceded seven goals during Celtic’s painful Champions League defeat against Borussia Dortmund (Picture: Getty)
Peter Schmeichel could only look on in horror as his son Kasper endured a night to forget during Celtic’s 7-1 Champions League defeat against Borussia Dortmund.
Brendan Rodgers’ side were torn apart by last year’s beaten finalists and suffered one of the most painful defeats in the club’s entire European history.
Schmeichel Snr watched the game from the TV gantry before completing his presenting duties for CBS, during which he was asked by Jamie Carragher how difficult it is to keep emotions in check while watching his son going through the ringer.
‘It really is difficult because you always want what is best for your children, it doesn’t matter what situation they find themselves in,’ said the Manchester United legend.
‘Of course today was just one of those days you can never, ever explain.
‘There were so many shots at goal, seven of them went in and it could have even been a little bit more.
‘It was just, as Callum McGregor said to me ealier on, one of those days where they couldn’t close enough to close them down. I spoke to Kasper as he came out of the dressing room.
Celtic had won their previous 17 matches before last night’s embarrassing Champions League defeat (Picture: Getty)
‘I said this was a bad day at the office, take if for nothing more, move on, be one of the leaders in the dressing room and help everybody else recover from this.
‘Up until this point Celtic have played really good football and there is so much optimism at the club. This is something where they need to go through what happened and this was just a really bad day at the office.’
Celtic full-back Alistair Johnston, meanwhile, vowed there would be no post-Dortmund ‘wobble’ following their humbling experience.
Johnston admitted Celtic contributed to their own downfall by turning over the ball too cheaply and said they can be more compact. And he believes there is scope for swift improvement if they use their difficult night as a learning opportunity.
Peter Schmeichel watched from the TV gantry as Celtic were hammered 7-1 by Borussia Dortmund (Picture: TNT Sport)
Celtic had won their previous 17 matches, including a 5-1 win over Slovan Bratislava in their opening Champions League contest, and Johnston is confident they can get a bad night in Germany out of their system.
‘We are not used to losing and that’s a pretty humbling experience, but they were Champions League finalists last season,’ the Canada international said. ‘We knew it was going to be a really difficult game.
‘We have to take things from it, we will watch it back and be honest with ourselves. That’s what is really good about this group and the coaching staff, we are honest and we have got to build on that.
‘We have got to understand what we did wrong, what they punished us with and what we did right.
‘There aren’t as many things we did right in this match unfortunately, but there will be little moments where we could make a little change to be braver in our positioning, be more compact defensively and things like that.
‘We will get it sorted out. It’s a really confident group we have here. We are not going to let this wobble us at all. We just have to understand it can happen, but it can’t happen again.’