League Cup final: Can Aberdeen deny Celtic a magnificent seventh trophy?

Brendan Rodgers has led Celtic to back-to-back domestic trebles since taking charge of the club

Hollywood's Golden Age has been summoned-up in the previews to Sunday's League Cup final. If Celtic beat Aberdeen at Hampden, it will be their seventh straight domestic title under Brendan Rodgers - or the Magnificent Seven as the chat goes.

For Yul Brynner, read Scott Brown. For Steve McQueen, read James Forrest.

Never mind that by the end of the great adventure Eli Wallach's Mexican banditos had taken all the joy out of the seven by blasting four of them to kingdom come, the movie ending with Brynner and McQueen looking solemnly over the graves of their fallen comrades.

Unless Aberdeen can produce what would be a jaw-dropping upset, then the Magnificent Seven it will be.

• Can Aberdeen douse Forrest fire?

• Gordon 'would have loved' to play in final

• Dallas to referee Hampden showpiece

As it stands, Celtic have won 21 consecutive cup ties since Rodgers took over, scoring 67 goals and conceding just seven with 16 clean sheets. That's 1890 minutes of knockout football and in all that time they've only been behind twice for a total of 47 minutes.

If it goes to form, two things will then happen. Celtic fans will celebrate wildly - and why wouldn't they? - while much of the rest of Scottish football will shrug its shoulders, declaring that Rodgers' team shouldn't be lauded for winning all these trophies given the vast financial advantages they have over all others.

And hey, there's no doubting the numbers. The recently published Global Sports Salaries Survey 2018 shows that Celtic players get paid more than six times what Aberdeen players get, more than seven times the wage of the Hearts players they overcame in the semi-final, and more than 17 times the wage of their St Johnstone counterparts, who they faced in the round before that.

'It can be done, but not often'

If football was all about finance, then Celtic would never lose, or even draw, a domestic game but, of course, they have done. Teams with a fraction of Celtic's budget have overcome the odds multiple times on Rodgers' watch in the Scottish Premiership if not in cup competition.

We're not simply talking about teams in the top half of the league who have found a way of combating the champions on a given day. Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Ross County and Partick Thistle did it in Rodgers' first season. Dundee, St Mirren and Livingston have done it since.

Celtic have lost six league games and have drawn 16 others since the Northern Irishman arrived in Glasgow. To put that in context, when St Mirren held the champions 0-0 in September, they overcame a financial disadvantage in which Celtic's player wage bill was an estimated 18 times their own. When Livingston did the same thing earlier this month, the gulf was even wider - 24 times, according to the global survey.

It can be done. Not often, but Celtic's huge advantage doesn't always mean they win. Other clubs, with clever managers and driven players, have a found a way to slow their march from time to time.

It's the same in various parts of Europe. Bayern Munich, the behemoth of the Bundesliga, lost the German Cup final to Eintracht Frankfurt last season. Eintracht's budget is one sixth of Bayern's. Last season, Real Madrid got knocked out of the Copa del Rey by Leganes. If finance was everything, Real Madrid would not be losing to a team with a tenth of its budget.

Manchester City lost to League One Wigan in last year's FA Cup. Wigan had a one-man advantage for 45 minutes, but City started that match with Leroy Sane, Bernardo Silva, David Silva and Sergio Aguero. Later, they brought on Kevin de Bruyne for the Spanish Silva. Still they couldn't score against a team that had lost at home to Blackpool less than a week before.

You can go around the continent and produce more examples of monied teams being troubled in part because of an inspired opponent and in part because of their own complacency. The point here is that finance doesn't always grant you immunity from failure against sides with inferior resources.

'Celtic will not thrown in a dud of a performance'

Brendan Rodgers has won 88 of his 110 domestic matches in charge of Celtic

Celtic have lost and have drawn plenty of games. Enough teams in Scotland have shown that they can get at Rodgers' side, but never in the cups. Not once.

It's too easy to dismiss their incredible run as being about money and nothing else. In truth, it's also about far more basic qualities like heart, pride, character, an ability to stand up to pressure, an ability to repeatedly deliver on a do-or-die day.

That's one of the things that makes this final so daunting for Aberdeen - the almost certain knowledge that Celtic will not make their job easier by throwing in a dud of a performance. In their four finals under Rodgers they have won 3-0, 2-0, 2-0 and 2-1.

The 2-1 was the 2017 Scottish Cup final against Aberdeen and it was terrific, the one time Celtic have been taken to the wire. The Dons were outstanding. They emptied themselves out there. There wasn't a player from either side who didn't come off the pitch at Hampden that day feeling less than spent and yet it was Celtic who came up with the winner late on. Spirit as much as talent took them over the line.

Aberdeen are not now what they were then. Their best player, Jonny Hayes, is now warming Celtic's bench. Their creative midfielder, Kenny McLean, is a Norwich City player. Their main holding midfielder, Ryan Jack, now plays for Rangers. Their principal striker that season and in the seasons that went before, Adam Rooney, is banging them in for non league Salford.

Derek McInnes doesn't need any telling about the fiscal chasm he's attempting to breach, but equally, the Dons boss knows that there's as much pride in performance as there are pounds in the bank in this Celtic team. Their hunger would appear insatiable.

Aberdeen are going to have to produce something wondrous to gun down the talk of the magnificent seven.