Celtic's Ange Postecoglou lifts lid on his unusual pre-match preparations

There are many visions that will spring to mind of a football dressing room as the minutes build towards kick-off.

A manager treating the area as a sort of library isn’t one of them, though. Yet that appears the ritual of Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou as he seeks to retain his equilibrium while his players will hype themselves up in preparing to enter the fray.

"I'll find a quiet corner and read something or do something to pass the time,” who might want to have a copy of War And Peace on Sunday for how long the immediate lead-up to the Scottish Cup semi-final against Rangers might feel. “Just to make sure I am prepared and I gather my thoughts for what's coming up. Once the game starts, my role is to be observant as possible, to make sure that if there is anything out there I can help the players with, that I am sharp in my mind with that. The time before the game is used as preparation for that. That's what I have done since the start of my managerial career and is my own way of preparing for games.”

The other aspect of such preparations is his crafted address to his players with whom he never seeks to banter. Not that he doesn’t leave room for living in the moment. Indeed, there was “a bit of both” the pre-planned and off-the-cuff, the Australian says, in his pre-match team talk before the Premier Sports League Cup final, footage of which the club released online recently.

“Whenever I speak to the players, it's important that whatever information I give is relevant to the moment, and that I understand the mood and what the players may or may not require,” the Celtic manager said. “I don't speak to the players a lot but when I do I try and make sure they get my message because. Whether it's in the final moments