Football Daily - Brendan Rodgers – The Football Interview

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

In this week’s edition of the Football Interview, Kelly talks to Brendan Rodgers. He talks about the ‘unique pressure’ of managing his current club Celtic, his hope of managing 1000 games and how winning the Championship play-off with Swansea City in 2011 and taking them into the Premier League propelled his career to another level.

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Available now, wherever you listen to podcasts. The Football Interview on the Football Daily Podcasts. I'm Kelly Summers and this season I'll be interviewing some of the biggest names in football asking them the questions they don't normally get asked as I try to find out more about the person behind the player or manager. The first half will be on football the second on their life away from the game. This isn't just any interview, this is the football interview. Brendan, lovely to get to sit down and chat with you away from the pressure, I'm guessing, of what it must be like up here for you in Scotland? Yeah, it's very intense and obviously huge expectations at Celtic, but it's an amazing club and a privilege to manage here and obviously live up here as well.

The question that I always start with in these interviews is we're here because of football. Your whole life has been governed by football. What does it mean to you? Football for as long as I've known it, it has been my life and I would say to my kids and would often pick up the size five football and I would tell and see that that ball there that's taking me around the world and giving me the most amazing life and that has purely been from when I was a child just loving the game and watching the game I have a photograph when I was young where I was only maybe about two or somewhere I broke my leg. It's actually how I became left foot because I used to kick the ball with my right foot

and then my brother pushed me out of the pram and I broke my leg. But whilst it was in plaster porras, they said I always wanted the football. So you had to learn to do it with my right foot. I would then start it kicked with my left foot and then when I got the plaster paras off I was all left foot and then very very lucky to then have spent my life in football

so as long as I've known it's always been a part of my life can you remember the first like proper team you played for yeah yeah the I was I didn't play my first 11 aside game until I was 13 my primary school we love football but we never had a

primary school team in carnalogue where I'm from I never had a a team in secondary school but it was through friends at secondary school they played for a team called Star United which was in Balamina and they asked me to come along and play for them now that was a year older and that was virtually my first game what were those years like kind of going through the system and when you realise that maybe you could you could kind of make it as a player I'd always hoped that I could and obviously when you get through those age groups before you play and you're

always wondering when is the chance going to come because because I wasn't playing in teams I remember my my mom and daddy used to read the the shoot magazine and there was a the Bobby Charton soccer school I must have just annoyed the life out of and I needed to get to Bobby Charton soccer school and you got there and and yeah I ended up I I was able to go there and in the hope that maybe I could be picked up so the whole dream was to be able to move across to England and be full-time. So you were just a young boy with this dream of being a footballer, but it didn't go probably the way that you would have hoped at that point, I'm guessing.

No, I think my youth career, as I said, I started at 13 very quickly. I was, you know, my first club that I went to was Manchester United. So I get picked up within a matter of months of playing to go on trial at Manchester United. And then I'd been to a number of clubs. I became an international player for Northern Ireland, which was amazing feeling and then I end up, I went to Reading. So yeah, but yeah, I went through,

I got to the age where, and also at that age, when I stopped playing, I recognised I probably wasn't going to be the player that I'd hoped I was going to be. Someone then said to me about, the next best thing to play in as coaching. And then I moved into coaching young. And the start of your coaching journey was quite interesting, wasn't it?

Where did you go to kind of learn your craft? I'd been out to Spain. I'd been to Barcelona because I was always interested in youth. I tried to earmark clubs that really had that, what you would say, the top-to-tail philosophy. So from the very top of the club, right through to the bottom, there's a sort of synergy there. So going to Spain, and also that's married in with my beliefs in the game and a technical game.

So I'd been to Spain, the Barcelona's Valencia's, Serbia as well. I'd been there, and then obviously I was in Holland as well and went to the Lex of Iax. I've been to FC20 as well. So for me it was the start point was really seeing that this. The European game and how they develop young players in Europe shouldn't be any different to how we develop our own players. The Football Interview on the Football Daily podcast and BBC Eye Player. The Dakar Rally is the ultimate off-road challenge.

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Listen on BBC Sounds. The Football Interview on the Football Daily podcast and BBC I player. I was going to come on to you going to Chelsea. Would you say that was your first big coaching job? Yeah, yeah. I think it's Sean the late. on my probably a lot a lot more being at Reading was brilliant as a club that looked after me as a young player end up being a Caribbean manager there had a

great spell nearly you know 14 years then but then going to go to Chelsea with Jose coming in as well where they wanted to go to as a football club how they wanted to transform the youth development section yeah there's absolutely no doubt because when I went in there I think it was I was only in the door and for two three weeks there was like four or five real high profile coaches that were linked with my job and I'd never obviously had that before ready at all and I remember actually going to to Jose on it and he said look listen what when you're at the biggest clubs and the top clubs you will have at least 12 names linked with your job

and he says it will be the same with me as a manager don't worry work well work hard and it will be okay that must have been an incredible learning ground and taught you so many things that you probably still use today yeah I think the the opportunity to work with world-class players we had some brilliant youth players there and then I had the chance then to move close with the first team.

At that time, John and Frank and Ashley Cole and all these guys, Claude McAlelele, just to be around that, to see how they live their life every day, see how they train, how they operate. It set the bar for me because everything they wanted to do was world-class. And you've been at such a variety of different clubs

since then, going from starting out as a manager to Watford, you've been Swansea, Liverpool, Celtic, twice as well. How would you sum up kind of your coaching, and has it surpassed all of your expectations? I think when I first started out, if it would have been sat here after this duration and managed the clubs I've been really proud of that. You know, starting as a manager at 35.

What was that like in itself? Yeah, that was, especially without the playing background. That was always going to, you know, I really had to earn my stripes as a coach because I, as I didn't come with that back, When I became the manager, you really realise that, I always say once the curtain goes back, the lights are shining on you as the manager, it's a different word. You can be so close as the assistant or first team coach, but being the actual lead and the guy responsible, it's a different job altogether. If you could relive one match, what would it be?

I think the game that always stands out because it was a A game that really propelled me was the playoff final. Swansea versus Reddy and I was obviously against my old club. But taking Swansea into the Premier League as the first Welsh club to arrive in there and knowing how much it meant to people at that time. It's the best game in football to win, isn't it? It's the worst game to lose, the best game to win, isn't it? Yeah, 100%.

I think that to go up out of the championship, if you knew that... You'd do it by the playoffs, you would take it over even winning the league because the whole drama around it and the whole Wembley day and that was special. And as I said, I've been fortunate enough to have won trophies up here. We sell it, which means everything to me. When in the FA Cup for the first time in Leicester's history was special. but I feel that game just changed it for me going into the Premier League

and then we did well in the Premier League. This is a question I always ask as well. Has there been a turning point in your career? Because it feels like your career has taken some incredible turns in general. But I wondered if there's one when you sit here today that you look back on and think if that hadn't happened

I might not be sitting here now. Yeah, I think I'll go back to my youth again. and my cousin, Karen McMillan, in the little village where I was from, because he played for the local football team and they would meet outside the pub. I wasn't allowed to go in the pub, of course, when I was younger.

But we would be stood outside and the team would meet there and then they would travel to play games. And guys would come out of the pub and just go past me and go into the car. But he always made sure I get in a car and see the football. And I never ever forgot that, never forgot that. And so that point there, if he doesn't take that time

and that care to look after me and put me, because then for the remaining years of my childhood and life, that got me started in football. I might have been, went into Gillick football or hurling or something else. but to this day I'll always appreciate that you've managed numerous clubs in England in the championship and in the Premier League some of the biggest clubs and now you manage one of the biggest clubs in Scotland as well how does the pressure kind of compare what is the pressure

like managing Celtic it's a real unique pressure in terms of pressure Celtic is right up there with the most pressurised jobs in football. Even when I was manager at Liverpool, you might have drawn with Manchester United and okay you wanted to win but it wouldn't maybe sometimes have been the worst result. With Celtic it's the expectation to win every single game. And not just win the game but to to do it in a style that is synonymous with the club because the club was the the first British team to win what would be the Champions League with the European Cup and they

did so in a style and that set the DNA for this club so it's not just about winning and people will tell and coaches the managers will say it's only about winning but it's Celtic it really is more than that the mental fortitude you need to show here as a player as a manager under the spotlight is huge. And you know, you can go to quite a lot of teams in the Premier League and it would be nowhere near. It would be like a holiday compared to managing Celtic and Rangers for that matter.

What's the proudest thing that you've achieved in your career? I think becoming a manager in the first place. I would have to say, yeah, because my journey was different, the path to get to becoming a manager. That's the biggest achievement for me. And hopefully I can continue to be that

and be as successful as I possibly can. And by that I mean helping players develop, helping them improve, helping the conditions in their life. And if that allows me to win trophies long way, then great. But being a manager is my, is my big highlight. If you could only achieve one more thing in your career, what would it be?

Reach a thousand games. Oh, you didn't even have to hesitate then? No, because that was where it all started. I think when I became a manager at Watford. I went to a great event that the LMA obviously do a brilliant job for us managers and I went to one of their events many, many years ago. And on the stage that night was guys that were being inducted into the you know the 1000 club and I remember sat there thinking wow they've done a thousand

games and I was maybe only about 20 odd games and I thought wow what a you know to be able to do 1,000 games it's it's a symbol of resilience and perseverance and and people actually like them what you do so for me if I could do one thing and that's what all started I'm 800 odd games now in, so I've still got quite a few more to go, but that would be the one career thing to be able to do. Brendan, thank you so much for your time. It's been fascinating and not too many games to go until you get to that 1,000. Well, a few more to go, but hopefully I can reach them. I think you just have to go out there and be the best that you can be. We're going to go out there and lay it all in the line.

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