Celtic and Santos Laguna shared only their green and white hooped jerseys before 2011.
But when they formed the unlikely 'Green and Blanco Alliance', both teams were fully committed to the collaboration.
Staff from the Liga MX side made the journey over to Scotland to learn from their Glaswegian counterparts as part of the partnership.
They appear to have reaped the rewards. Three of Santos' six Liga MX Clausura titles have come in the years following the partnership - one of which ironically came under former Rangers boss Pedro Caixinha, who featured in a clip to congratulate his "Celtic brothers" on a title victory.
Danish banker Martin Hollaender helped broker a takeover at the club in 2013 and would then become a key figure at Santos Laguna.
He worked under owner Alejandro Irragorri, who developed a strong relationship with Peter Lawwell, and Hollaender insists Santos owe everything to Parkhead.
He told Sky Sports : "A lot of clubs talk about alliances with Real Madrid and Barcelona and they go once a year to take a picture with the president and that is basically it.
"This alliance was quite deep. We sent employees to live in Scotland for up to nine months.
"Even though it is not the largest league in the world, Celtic is a very well-run club with best practices in a lot of areas. So we sent our employees over there, more as a secondment.
"It is not only that Celtic and Santos share colours, we found a really big brother in Celtic. Our gratitude to Celtic is endless. I could talk about Celtic for 24 hours.
"Celtic are as prepared as the best Premier League teams. It is just the market that does not support that, income wise. The passion of their fans. We learned a lot.
"They opened the door to us in Europe and helped us create relationships and learn best practices."
