Kieran Tierney eschewed the pull of the Champions League to spent an “emotional” night at the theatre taking in the Celtic Musical.

And the Celtic full-back is confident that Brendan Rodgers’s side will be on song tonight as they kick off their European campaign against Rosenborg.

“It was class, to be fair,” smiled Tierney. “I would recommend it to everybody. Somebody asked me if I had been watching the Champions League but I said: ‘no chance! I was at the musical!’

“Nobody had to twist my arm to go along. I was dying to go. I had to beg Celtic for tickets for me and my mates. I will probably try and go again.”

Tierney spent as much of the evening posing for photographs and signing autographs as he did watching the stage, not that he had any complaints – “if people ask you for pictures you should be grateful and I am grateful” – but the foundations for where he finds himself now were sown in the competition that Celtic will head back into tonight.

It was a Europa League game against Fenerbahce when Tierney came of age in Ronny Deila’s side and his performance that night went some way to establishing him in the Parkhead senior team.

“If someone had told me that night that three years later all this would have happened, I wouldn’t have believed it,” said the Scotland internationalist. “That I would have been given the chance to captain Celtic, lead them out and do the talk in the huddle. That I was part of the History Makers season and it’s just a huge honour.

“It was my fourth or fifth game [against Fenerbahce] and I never thought I’d be starting. I did pretty well and from there I got my chance. It was Ronny Deila who gave me the opportunity and I thank him for that.

“I would say that was the night it really started for me as a first team player for Celtic. I didn’t play every game after that but he (Deila) trusted me in big games after it.

“Emilio [Izaguirre] got a red card in one game soon afterwards, so I played in more European games. That was the one that kick-started it for me.

“I remember the build-up when I was being shown video clips of Nani and Robin van Persie - I was thinking ‘you’re joking!’. No chance!

“But I remember we went 2-0 up then conceded right before and after half-time which kind of killed it. I would have loved to have got the win in my first European game.

“I was up against Nani in the first half, then he switched wings. It was some game to come into and after that my confidence grew. It gave me belief that I could play in Europe and I just wanted more of it.

“The atmosphere was great and just to be on the pitch for a European game was brilliant. I was quite nervous and scared at first but once the game started, I forgot about that and just tried to play my normal game.”

While the Europa League doesn’t hold the allure of the group stages of the Champions League, Tierney is desperate for Celtic to go and make their mark in the tournament.

Rosenborg and Red Bull Leipzig and Red Bull Salzburg will all look to make it into the latter stages of the competition and Tierney believes that there is prestige to be gained by succeeding in it.

“Every team in our group is a hard team,” he said. “It’s a great tournament. People don’t understand how good it is. It’s prestigious and for me it’s a huge honour to play in it. I don’t take it for granted and I know how tough it’s going to be.”

Rosenborg are familiar foes for Celtic. Tonight’s game is the fifth meeting in 14 months between the sides although Tierney is wary of a greater threat from the Norwegians that there was when they came up against one another in the Champions League qualifiers.

The Trondheim side have been far more steady on and off the field since then with a sequence of ten games producing nine wins and one draw.

“You know what you are coming up against in a way,” said the full-back. “They have been on a good run recently, so it will be a tough game as always but we are looking forward to it.

“We went a goal down to them but the way we responded was great. So we know we can come back against them if we need to. But we want to go out there and play well from the start this time. “They will be more confident but that’s something we just need to deal with. We are a few games further on, our fitness is better.

“A couple of results haven’t gone our way but it’s not the end of the world. It’s still early in the season in the league. Now it’s the first game of the Europa League so there is still everything to play for.”