Source: Team_Talk
Mowbray plays down Hoops victory
Celtic had travelled to Russia for Wednesday's match knowing they had never won a European tie after losing the first game at Parkhead and, indeed, their last European win on their travels had been six years ago.
However, Scott McDonald's header a minute from the break in the Arena Khimki levelled the tie against the Muscovites 1-1 on aggregate.
There was more drama to come in the final minute when substitute Georgios Samaras, on for McDonald, struck with a wonderful goal to send the Parkhead side into the Champions League play-offs where they can meet clubs such as Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Stuttgart, Lyon or Fiorentina.
As the couple of hundred Celtic fans who had travelled to Russia celebrated a momentous night, the Hoops boss played all the fuss down.
"It was just about the next game for me," he said.
"It's not about me. It's about the players and the squad.
"I just try to prepare my team for football games.
"If we get beat by Manchester City on Saturday it will be a crisis again.
"We took two chances in this game while last week we never took any.
"I didn't give two thoughts about our European record," he added.
"This was the first time that those 11 players had played away in Europe and that was the message before the game.
"I told the players to forget about the past and make our own history.
"We knew how Dinamo would play so we weren't surprised.
"They were structured and organised but, over the two legs, I don't think anyone could say that we didn't deserve to win.
"I told the players that they had to believe we could win the game and the bottom line is we created enough chances over the 180 minutes to win the tie."
The Parkhead boss also refused to take credit for the introduction of Samaras late in the game when extra-time was looming.
"That is an irrelevance to me," he said.
"I always make substitutions, I don't think there has been a game where I haven't made a substitution.
"If the substitute goes on and makes a difference then great, if he goes on and you lose a goal then it's rubbish and it's never either.
"They are all part of the team, they are all part of it whether they are on the bench or in the team.
"Whether Georgios came off the bench to score, or one of the boys who started the game, it doesn't really matter."
Dinamo coach Andrey Kobelev, who was thought to be overly cautious in his pre-match press conference, claimed inexperience added to fatigue cost his side.
He said: "I think our inexperience let us down and our team was tired in the second half.
"We played well in defence and tried to play on the counter-attack but too often the second pass wasn't good enough.
"I was disappointed to be losing at half-time, Celtic didn't make any chances and then they got another late goal."
