The Scottish champions face the amateurs from Hampden at Celtic Park tomorrow in the fifth round of Scotland's premier cup competition and no-one expects anything other than a comprehensive victory for the Hoops. Marc Crosas only needs to look to Real Madrid's cup exit back in November to realise that it can happen to the biggest clubs on the planet. The Galactico's were dumped out of the Copa del Rey by third division Real Union in the biggest upset in their history "The result showed just what can happen." said the midfielder "They lost in the earlier rounds of the Cup to a Third Division team. For a bigger team this kind of game can be the worst. It can be tough for players to get motivated when everybody says you are going to win but you have to prepare properly to make sure nothing goes wrong. We will do our best to make sure nothing like this happens to Celtic by preparing and playing properly."
Cup football has played a major role in the youngster's career already, in fact he made his first-team debut for Barcelona in the Spanish Cup and during his loan spell at Lyon he helped his team reach the final only to be a spectator on the big day as Lyon lifted the cup "My first game for Barcelona was in the cup against Badalona but I didn't play in the Final for Lyon." he said "You have to accept these things and be ready to help the team always, whether it is from the start or from the bench. At Lyon there were great midfielders like Juninho, Jeremy Toulalan and Kim Kallstrom. It would be nice to play in the Final but the most important thing is Celtic are playing in it, not me. We want to be winning every title and if I am on the pitch that is going to be a great thing for me. I am on the bench and the team wins, it will also be really good for me because we are all part of the one group."
Crosas is delighted to be part of a squad which is top of the league and competing strongly for two national cups but he realises that competing strongly is not enough, he knows that there is enormous pressure on Celtic to win every game that they play. "I know Celtic are big and it's intense." he said "We have to be ready for these things. We know we are trusted to get into all the finals of the cup competitions and also to be winning the league and at this point we are doing that. We are in the League Cup Final, we play in the Scottish Cup this week and are at the top of the SPL. We are good and coping with this pressure. The pressures are like Barcelona. When it goes bad, people always want to talk about your club. When things are going well, people also want to talk about the club."
"It's similar to Barcelona but it can be even more so because we have the O** F*** situation in Glasgow." continued Crosas "In Barcelona we have a derby but it is with Real Madrid and they are from another town with another Press and other people. Espanol is a derby but the Real game is the big one. Always, people are looking for more. The fans, the people, the Press. We are okay with our squad and I think that it is very good. People still want more and we know it is always going to be like this."
Now that he's fully recovered from the injury which halted his initial push to establish himself Marc is extremely happy with life at Celtic Park. "I am happy at Celtic and being with this club facing these situations is a good experience." he said "The only problem for me was the injury I had earlier in the season. It made things difficult for me because I was stuck out for two months and that made the situation harder. I had just arrived and wanted to play. But now I am back and all my family is happy with me. They don't stay in Scotland with me but they come to visit quite a lot and that is good for me. I enjoy everything."