It might be the industrial strength lager they serve in these parts, but there is something different about Bayern Munich right now, writes Michael Gannon in Munich.

This is usually a club that just oozes confidence. Some would say arrogance, but it’s only arrogance if you can’t really back it up. Bayern can back up their sky high levels of self-belief. Yet there is something a little off about them this time around. It might sound a bit crazy when we’re talking about an organisation that normally struts around with a world class swagger, but they seem a tad, well, nervous. It almost sounds daft to say it. But there is a hint of tension around Bayern Munich ahead of this Celtic clash.

It’s not that they are too worried about the Hoops, mind you. Bayern boss Vincent Kompany and his players have shown Celtic plenty of respect, way more than usually seen from the Germans. They still fully expect to get the job done tonight with the minimum of fuss. And the people around the club see anything other than progress to the last 16 as utterly unthinkable.

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For all that though, there are little seeds of doubt being spread around. In the pre-match press conference Kompany and Jamal Musiala were asked about pressure. That’s normally a dirty word in these parts. Yet it is on them.

Bayern’s space-age super stadium the Allianz Arena will host the Champions League Final this May and it seems to have cast a shadow over the entire club. They can’t bear the thought of the big event happening on their patch and not being involved. There are genuine fears that could transpire though. Bayern are top of the Bundesliga – as usual – but there are grumbles around the place.

The performances have been criticised, Kompany’s tactics questioned and the fact they are even having to go through the indignity of being involved in this new extra play-off stage is seen as a major red neck.

The fact some are even contemplating some kind of shock tonight just shows where they are right now. In contrast, the pressure is totally off Celtic. No one really expects Brendan Rodgers’ side to follow Liverpool and PSG as the only European teams to win here in the last decade.

If Celts went down four or five, not many would bat an eyelid. In fact, if Celtic were to do the incredible this evening, it would go down as one of their greatest ever results in European competition. The scale of the challenge is ridiculous.

Hoops fans know it as well. One rather well oiled chap on the flight out explained it well enough to the German passenger sitting next to him, when he admitted his team could get battered but they’d enjoy the party anyway.

You could argue if Celtic avoid a battering, that could be seen as a success in itself. Getting out of here without suffering reputational damage would be a fairly decent outcome. Rodgers has already restored the club’s name on the big stage in the wake of the Borussia Dortmund duffing up early in the campaign. The results and performances since then have suggested lessons have been learned and progress has been made.

It should give hope for further development next term and nothing that happens tonight will change that. Rodgers has some decisions to make. There are calls for Daizen Maeda to play through the middle and to let Jota loose.

It’s a fair point, but Celtic can’t go out here all guns blazing. They need to stay in the game as long as possible and hope to still have a sniff in the final 20 minutes or so. That might mean Maeda will be needed on the flank to do a defence number on Bayern’s full back, while giving his team a decent out ball to get up the pitch.

Celtic need an Atalanta style backs to the wall job for as long as possible and then hope to land a sucker punch. The thing is, Bayern don’t need to overcommit and seeing how wary they were of speed merchants Maeda and Nicolas Kuhn at Parkhead, they might be cagey as well.

In years gone by, Munich wouldn’t have given a hoot about the threat posed by others. But this is not the usual Bayern and while it’s not much, it’s maybe some hint of hope for Celtic, even if it might need a pair of beer goggles to see it.