The championship celebrations, the Neil Lennon Farewell marathon and the Tennent's Scottish Cup triumph were a fond yet distant memory as Celtic reconvened in Switzerland yesterday.

The Uhren Cup, a long-standing quadrangular pre-season competition including FC Basle, Young Boys and Red Bull Salzburg, carries none of the cachet of Celtic's cherished feats of late, yet it is the starting point for the most daring and defining era of Gordon Strachan's stewardship.

Notable absentees at Prestwick Airport yesterday morning included the seemingly mythical figure of Bobo Balde, Paul Hartley and Maciej Zurawski and two of the most recent acquisitions, Chris Killen and Massimo Donati.

Of equal surprise was the attendance of players so peripheral to last season's endeavours that they might conceivably have sloped off the Alps mid-campaign and few among the Celtic support would have registered, far less mourned, their disappearance.

Thomas Gravesen and Jiri Jarosik were present, but still not quite correct. There has been much intrigue generated by the summer activities of Strachan and, equally, Peter Law-well, the chief executive in the midst of such a red-hot negotiating streak he would be forgiven for taking himself to the high-rolling poker tables of Las Vegas to test the boundaries of his apparent invincibility.

Signing Donati, an elegant Italian playmaker from AC Milan, is the highlight of a recruitment drive that has also spawned Killen and Scott McDonald.

Donati's imminent arrival at the team's headquarters in Switzerland evoked memories of Paolo Di Canio's heralded acquisition by Celtic from AC Milan; a memorable, if short-lived, relationship with the Parkhead support until his infamous swop deal for a comparative carthorse, Regi Blinker, at Sheffield Wednesday.

Back then, Mark Wilson's football aspirations were consigned to the stuff of childhood dreams, albeit encouraged by regular visits to Celtic Park to watch the wondrous - if hopelessly unrewarded - skills of Di Canio, Jorge Cadete, Pierre van Hooijdonk and Andreas Thom.

"I used to watch Celtic every week when Di Canio was there and he was a real hero of mine and every single Celtic fan," Wilson recalled yesterday, from his perch at the head of the Donati welcoming party. "I used to love watching him because he could do everything with a football. He was a fantastic talent and if Massimo can be half as good then we are in for a real treat.

"He looks like a great signing.

To play for AC Milan suggests he has some amount of quality and having played around 100 games in Serie A, you have to assume he is a top-class player. He is 26, at the peak of his powers and shows what calibre of player Celtic can attract."

Of late, Celtic have not so much rested on reputation as re-emerged with a newfound credibility owing to their domestic dominance and, at long last, a harmonious and profitable relationship between manager and money-men. They may have had their discreet disagreements, but there is no disputing the effects of the Strachan/Lawwell axis prominent in Celtic's evolution post-Martin O'Neill.

"Getting into the last 16 of the Champions League was a big help and to beat Manchester United, Benfica and Copenhagen at home sent out a message to the whole of Europe," said Wilson, whose own input was seriously curtailed by two injuries. "Anyone who signs knows they are joining a massive club and will be performing on a great stage.

"A lot of people take more notice of Celtic now; we play the biggest teams in pre-season and are invited to the best tournaments. It also helps us attract players like Massimo and I'm sure he will be a great signing."

This season's preparatory work will be less harmful to Celtic's carbon footprint. A year ago, Lawwell's wisdom in sending Celtic to Poland, Japan and America was questioned both externally and internally, most famously by Alan Thompson, the midfielder who predicted the air miles could jeopardise the club's entire season.

In the end, such scaremongerinig was hopelessly unfounded as Celtic won the championship at a canter, foraged new ground in the Champions League . . . oh, and earned bucketloads of yen, US dollars and Great British pounds in the process.

"The season I arrived, we won the league and CIS Insurance Cup, went into pre-season in Poland and America, lost the games we played in, and everybody was on our backs," said Wilson, who moved from Tannadice to Parkhead a year and a half ago. "For me as a newcomer it felt like welcome to Celtic'. We won the title only weeks earlier, but still got so much stick.

"Just like this season, the slate is wiped clean very quickly and any achievements are quickly consigned to the past. When I was at Dundee United, we went to Preston for five days and that was our pre-season. Now, at Celtic, we go on two separate tours and long breaks are a thing of the past. Stephen McManus and the other Scotland guys have had three weeks off, maximum. It's not like the old days."

Wilson's own holiday season has willingly been disrupted by the pursuit of full fitness, which explains his enthusiasm at returning to the bosom of the squad after being outcast to the treatment room. "I have spent the summer running because I want to get back to my best," he said. "No-one looks forward to pre-season, but I'd rather be among the boys again than training with the physio. It's nice not to feel left out."