While the Rangers support is bursting with Jock Wallace’s pre-derby ‘battle fever’, Philippe Clement will be going through a well-worn routine of exercise and family as he tries to adapt to the chaos to come on Sunday afternoon.
A quiet dinner with his loved ones has potential before the game and working in the gym is a certainty.
It’s a ritual he avoided once in his fledgling career as a manager, and which he soon came to regret. It is a lesson that Belgians heed. When Clement feels the pain, the burning sensation, he feels refreshed and ready to go. The gym is his refuge, his ‘runaway space’.
But don’t think the Rangers manager will want to be distracted from his task of taking his team back to the top of Scottish football by beating Celtic at Ibrox.
“My head is also full of football. It’s my life, it’s my passion. I don’t feel like the gym distracts me, it just helps me. They say a good mind needs a good body.
“And I felt it before. There was a time when I forgot to do it. Looking back, it was a mistake. It didn’t make a big difference, but it did anyway, so I took that class. That’s the only thing what can I do.” Otherwise, football is always on my mind.
“For me, the gym is the place where I can really free my mind and focus on that. And I feel better afterwards when it hurts, when it burns.”
A natural leader with authority when he steps into a room, Clement has made managing Rangers look simple, not a walk in the park. His professional approach has so impressed players, staff and the media that it feels as if he is destined to take on such a demanding and high-profile job.
Talk to the man himself and his story is less simple. Before becoming boss at Waasland-Beveren in his native country seven years ago, he wanted to spend his career cultivating the next generation of Belgian stars.
“I started my career as an U21 coach in Bruges,” he remembers. “I had just stopped my playing career to do that and I thought: that’s what I’m going to do for the next thirty years. It is my passion to develop young boys.
“To give them the right tools to make them better, and also at that time there was no history of young players developing from the second team to the first team in Bruges.
“Although they always had good talents and national team players in the youth teams, the gap was too big. My challenge was to make it smaller. So it started that way. Then become an assistant and get more and more responsibility.
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“The last year at Preud’homme they called me the main assistant, which they call T2 in Belgium. They said I was one and a half because I did so much with Michel. When he quit, I thought I didn’t want to do this role with someone else because we had been working together for four years and to have that responsibility with someone who steps into that football story that I don’t like or that I don’t like. It doesn’t suit me, I didn’t want to do that.
“I started as a manager, to write my own story. Then I felt that I wanted to write my own story. So it’s been a natural progression, like a snowball that gets bigger and bigger the longer it rolls.”
Clement has the air of a man in control of his environment, whether he wins or loses. An engineer by training, he exudes a clear sense of creating a strong framework in which others can thrive.
The cold, calm professionalism of the athletes working under him seems like a prerequisite for the job, but as with everything, there had to be balance. While an Old Firm is often discussed as a fiery cauldron in which the crowds can tempt players into moments of madness, the opposite mentality of timidity can set in and is just as ineffective.
“I don’t want players running around on the field like they’re really calm or taking Valium or something like that before the game,” he jokes. “That is not the intention. They have to be ready and switched on, but with a calm mind. It is about being intense, good and sharp but always having an overview and focus and not losing concentration.
“They have done that well now. You saw the difference in the Hibs cup game where we stayed calm despite the tackles and things going on and we take those experiences with us into every game. We talk about that a lot, that it helps our football if we focus on ourselves.
“Every three days I speak to players individually. And every game is different in our game plan because it depends on our opponents and how they play, so the players are used to that too. It’s not that we do the same thing; we change every match, special things to find space and create chances and avoid having chances against us. So every game has its own identity. Like this game too.”
Facing an experienced and immensely successful Celtic coach in Brendan Rodgers will be a career-defining challenge for both men. If they fail, there is a guaranteed negative outcome for any of their employment prospects.
The two barely know each other, but Clement is already immersed enough in club culture to understand that this situation is unlikely to change. His relationship with Gordon Strachan dates back to their time at Coventry City, but wanting to respect attitudes in Glasgow he will not dine with his old mentor, who once acted as babysitter for his youngest child. So he and Brendan will remain at an eternal distance as their paths continue to follow the same path.
“Brendan and I don’t know each other very well personally. I met him at the Celtic game, of course I know his career. I have a lot of respect for that and all the things he has achieved.
“We also met in Hampden for the Scotland v Northern Ireland national team match. We saw each other talk about that briefly. But I know it’s complex in the city.
“I even saw an interview with Gordon Strachan, my supervisor and with whom I had a very good relationship. And dining together is not allowed here in Glasgow because his son works on Celtic’s coaching staff.
“That’s a shame. I think you need this rivalry, but out there it’s still a possibility for me, but apparently not in this city. And so I adapt in that way. So I respect the city and I respect our fans. So we’ll keep it as it was.”