Celtic will face their first Champions League qualifying opponents on either 31 July or 1 August but heartbeats among the scouting staff will quicken tonight and tomorrow when every potential opponent will play in the second qualifying round.
A number of potential opponents from eastern and northern Europe are mid-season but all will benefit from successfully coming through two qualifying games before tackling seeded opponents two weeks from now.
It is crucially important that Celtic are ready for this tie.
The final qualifying round, scheduled to take place during the last two weeks in August, will offer a greater challenge on paper but European qualifying games in July are notorious for catching better teams unprepared.
After a credibly, though ultimately unsuccessful, Europa League group campaign last season Celtic’s domestic form clicked into place and we looked like a team capable of becoming champions. There was some regret that we didn’t hit form early enough to make the most of our European adventure. Neil Lennon will also be keen to avoid the anaemic performance against Sion, who beat Celtic on aggregate but were subsequently awarded two 3-0 defeats for failing to observe rules.
These Celtic players found hidden depths last season but they have a point to prove in Europe. There is also the nagging suspicion that this Celtic team is more talented that the two Gordon Strachan took to the later stages of the Champions League.
Bring it on.
Get your season ticket and saddle up for the ride.
940 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- ...
- 25
- »
This Sevco carry on reminds me of the story abt the mother watch her son in his army coming parade when she comments. Look, they are all out of step bar ma Tommy.
TopCorner
Neil Lennon has stated that the youngsters have returned to Glasgow to take part in development squad games. He has the likes of Samaras, Victor etc back and the games from now on are in preparation of CL qualifier.
The performances against Ajax, Norwich and Inter Milan are what count now.
Porto, Zenit, Shaktar, Lyon, Wisla Krakow, Slovan Bratislava and the Albanian Champions – fancy playing them and knocking them out?
APOEL Nicosia did.
So, aye, whoever we draw in the qualifiers and whoever we draw in the groups, if we get there and to improve our lot, we have to beat what’s set in front of us, whoever that may be.
Remember Ajax in 2001?
excitedCSC
Hi All,
Happiness is coming home from shopping at Asda and find your tickets for the Inter game have arrived.
Yipee cant wait.
Milan ticket arrived.
Weefra HH
embramike on 17 July, 2012 at 12:27 said:
As we draw breath and await our fate in the draw on Friday for Q3 of Champions League (CL), I was browsing the excellent Bert Kassies site on possible opponents etc etc…….
========================================
Excellent info Embra.
Sobering information which highlights the real difficulties we will have in securing Euro football in seasons ahead.
It also brings into focus the challenge our executive will face in trying to attract the best affordable players when Euro football will be far from guaranteed.
Equally how can the club’s AMBITIONS be achieved within current financial REALITIES?
I guess making a good impact this year & next is very important as the 3 years which follow look even more challenging.
Although Paul67 spoke of the playing performance in his leader and the need for Celtic to make a sporting mark, I suspect (given the nature at the birth of this site) he will soon be briefing us on the financial aspects of success & failure and how this would likely impact the club in the immediate years ahead.
I look forward to us putting RFC/RFC(IA)/RFC(IL)/Sevco completely aside (& I do mean COMPLETELY) very soon.
Now is the time to talk Celtic & at long last without any reference to them at all. They are for now a total irrelevance.
starry plough
lol!
Glasgow’s Green & Whyte!
As a folower of this blog,RTC,KDS and the one and only Phil Mac Giolla Bhain it is difficult to keep up with all the info and suggestions that are never ending. So apologies if this idea has been mentioned before.
Regarding the Sky/ESPN/BT contracts, you know the ones where the SPL worth has been massively played down by the very person that is supposed to talk it up, namely ND.
As I understand it the talking down is due to the dead club not being able to play the champions 4 times a year and therefore the viewing figures will be low for all the other games.
This I suggest is in our own gift as every Scottish football fan can make sure that every Scottish league match is viewed and therefore the viewing figures will be a plus for the next CEO to sell to the broadcasters.
So the ball is in our court, there are around 600K subscribers in Scotland not to mention the ones like myself who now live down south. Even if we do not watch all these games at least turn them on and leave them till the finish and that will register as a viewer figure.
What do you think lads, spread it around the internet to all the other football fans sites and get the ball rolling.
Missing the Inter game. :(
I cant wait for the season to start now. I would love us in the CL proper. Back to teams bricking it as they walk out into that roar and now we have the Green Brigade giving it for 90 minutes.
Oh please let us qualify…
Jens Voigt interview
cycling legend
nice guy too
“every cell in my body was screaming STOP STOP”
http://www.itv.com/tourdefrance/news/cult-cycling-hero-jens-voigt-talks-to-ned-boulting/
THE Hoops play their final pre-season game on German soil later today when they take on Vfr Aalen in a game which has a 6pm kick-off (Celtic Park time) before the Celtic roadshow moves on to The Netherlands at the weekend where Ajax may well provide a sterner test.
Victor Wanyama may have had a slightly more hectic summer period after turning out for Kenya on international duty but he is determined to get back into action for the Hoops as soon as possible.
The midfielder said: “It feels good to be back and I am looking forward to the friendly matches we have coming up now, I hope they will be good games.
“I had some games with the national team but they didn’t go very well. We are still hopeful of qualifying though.
“I got a short time off after the games and just went home, that´s where I spent my holidays.”
He didn’t have a long break following Kenya’s World Cup qualifiers against Malawi and Namibia, though, before he was back at the Celtic pre-season training treadmill and a bit of on-field action is next in line in Wanyama’s preparation for the rigours of the season ahead.
He added: “Since I joined up with the squad I have been doing a lot of running and playing some small football games in training.
“I feel good. I feel as though I am ready and I am looking forward to the next two friendlies before we go home.
“I am ready to play – I am always ready to play.”
ASonofDan
Did I hear a whisper that the Green Brigade now have the lower section as well?
I may be imagining this but sure I heard they were going to be giving it laldy in the entire section now!
HH
Guys – apologies in advance for asking a potentially stupid question, but…
If all the asssets of Rangers FC now belong to Sevco who pays BDO for their services?
tractorbhoy
Does recording a game count twice?
LB
Paul67.
My season ticket was bought as normal, particularly because I thought that Celtic need support now more than ever. As it turns out, I am not working at present, taking a time out to travel – currently planning to be away until mid-November – I’ll be arranging for the ticket to be used for most home games however there will be occasions where that won’t be possible, so whilst its strictly not policy to allow transfer of tickets if you would know of any worthy recipients of a free ticket to watch the Hoops on a given occasion I’d be glad to oblige – just post me an email if you would like.
Hail Hail
For those saying the players who have left (10/11) werent good enough are missing the point
We have released considerable amounts of money so why would we still be needing to sell anyone to finance additions Also we committed to a 4 year contract to the Polish c/h and then cancelled it when he got injured
Also i repeat our manager stated clearly that he wanted a centre back and striker in for pre season training so they were integrated into squad so as to hit ground running for CL qualifiers
As of now the club have failed to back our manager and for those who keep saying we will skate qualifiers i say beware
Have thems got the obligatory 3 yrs audited accounts yet? I know Spartans have. <o))
The right intentions? lol!
Green
“I have met Craig Whyte four times. The last time I spoke to him he called me to say ‘well done’, after we had done the deal.
“Craig is a guy who, I think, had the right intentions but didn’t have the resource to deliver. Unfortunately for Rangers fans, the club got into a mess.
“I don’t speak to Craig and he is not part of the consortium, which is what my board colleagues will be telling and showing and proving to the SFA today.”
canamalar – BOTOB in or out
You mean like some sort of BOTOB/Hokey Cokey mashup?
Down with this sort of thing. (thumbsup)
starry plough @13 32
Thanks for the heads up re the Greg Wilson blog .
Lots of good Bob Babbitt in The Standing in The Shadows of Motown Dvd Documentary —— available for less than a fiver from Amazon.
Bob was joint first white artist to appear on Soul Train.——- He and fellow Funk Brother Dennis Coffee laying down the groove on the later to be much sampled —-Scorpio.
What other colourful, controversial, scoddish ‘millionaires’ has Charles met?
Great article about the SKY deal.
According to Stewart Regan, chief executive of the Scottish Football Assocation, and Neil Doncaster, his SPL counterpart, the existing deal, worth circa £15m per season, would disappear to be replaced with one worth just £3m. The fall off is staggering.
While Rangers are a key player as far as the television companies are concerned, they are not the be all and end all of Scottish football. In the 2010/11 season the average viewing figure on Sky was 247,000 per game. Even if all broadcast matches including Rangers are discounted, there would still have been on average a viewership of 180,000 per game. Rangers contributed 27% of the viewing figures, so why should a subsequent TV agreeement without them decrease by 500%?
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this is a terrible deal. The SPL is the 11th most-attended league in Europe, ahead of Switzerland, Austria and Norway, all of whom can command higher television revenue. Even without Rangers, the SPL would still have had higher attendances than the three aforementioned leagues. The Greek league, which has attendances half of our own, has a television deal worth three times as much, while the Norwegians pull in similar numbers.
Are attendances the key indicator here? Can they translate into viewing figures when the Barclays Premier League is on our doorstep and on our screens? Let’s look at some leagues in a similar situation, namely the Austrian, Swiss and Norwegian leagues.
The former has a deal with Sky Austria worth £13.5m a season, an arrangement similar to our own. However, while the SPL goes out to 645,000 subscribers in Scotland alone, the Austrian league is broadcast to just 240,000 local subscribers, three times fewer. Like Scotland, Austria is in the shadow of its neighbour and Sky also has the rights to all games in Germany’s Bundesliga.
Over the border in Switzerland, they have just signed a deal worth £20m, with a further £4m coming from domestic channels. Swisscom, the cable company with the rights, has 608,000 subscribers and is the biggest cable operator in Switzerland, giving it similar reach to that of the SPL yet generating 33% more revenue.
In Norway, they have an even better deal, with a contract signed with TV2 Norway worth a reported £44m a year revenue despite viewing figures which are lower than Sky’s figures for the SPL. According to a report from TNS-Gallup, the most viewed domestic Norwegian match in 2011 was Lillestrom versus Brann, which attracted 196,000 viewers. As a comparison, a fixture between St Mirren and Hibernian attracted 392,000 viewers on February 20 last year, while the SPL’s average viewership on Sky is just shy of 250,000 per match. Even if we discounted all matches with Rangers, the viewership would still be around 180,000 per match.
So, Scotland gets less money than the Norweigans, the Swiss and the same as the Austrians, but on all counts boasts higher viewerships and match attendances. So why is the deal so poor in comparison? There is a suggestion that it is to do with the popularity of the English league, but Norway attracts Premier League viewerships five times those generated by their domestic matches; a similar ratio to Scotland, given that the average English game attracts 1m viewers.
Likewise, Austrian and Swiss football is overshadowed by the Bundesliga, which attracts more viewers than domestic matches – yet they still have deals either similar to or better than the SPL.
Another issue is the perceived lack of competition for SPL rights. Since the collapse of Setanta, Sky have had a monopoly and have, therefore, dictated the figures. Indeed, a Nordiccom report into the current Norwegian deal highlighted the situtation in the UK, saying “if former rivals decide to join forces instead of continuing to compete, this may have dramatic consequences for the competition, and hence also for prices. The fewer broadcasters that originally were present, the closer a reduction can move the market towards a monopsony [one single buyer]. This, in turn, will transfer market power from the sellers to the buyers”.
So the above lack of competition maybe explains the current deal being less than those of other European countries, but still cannot explain Doncaster’s £3m figure. To put that prediction into perspective again, it would rank Scottish football on par with ***gary, who sell their rights domestically for £2.8m. That league gets 2900 fans per game on average.
Is that all Sky are really offering for a league which would generate viewing figures of 180,000 a game more than Norway, even without Rangers? The Barclays Premier League generates average figures of around 1m for Sky, yet receives £1bn a year in revenue. Even with their monopoly, £3m is a derisory figure. But, assuming the figures are accurate, what alternatives do we have?
There is ESPN, but they appear to be building their interests in alliance with Sky. There is BT vision, who just invested £750m to show 38 Barclays Premier League games a season. With their model, which allows users to watch via mobile devices and the internet as well as conventional TV, this may be the way forward. There is also the long-mooted SPL TV option, modelled on the successful Eredivisie TV platform in the Netherlands.
At £6 per month, or £50 for the season, the platform allows you to watch all the Eredivisie matches live, wherever you are in the world. Just to put this in perspective, if a similar deal was set up in Scotland, 37,500 subscribers would be required worldwide to match Doncaster’s figure of £3m. If the numbers without Rangers remained at 180,000 a match, just short of £15m would be generated for the Scottish game, which looks surprisingly similar to what Sky are currently paying.
Is the current deal underpriced? Possibly, but with the lack of competition and the unwillingness of the SPL to take a step into the unknown, it is at least understandable. Could the proposed £3m figure by Doncaster be undervalued? Absolutely, and for that comment alone there should be a vote of no confidence heading in his direction
….and who is doing the valuations of the worth to the scoddish economy of the missing Celtic Vs Defhunct Klub????
…It’s not anything to do with that mob who used to talk about floating blue pitches and palatial mega-casinos near Edmiston Way is it????
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuumph!
FPLG
lol!
Ally McCoist could face action from the Scottish Football Association over his demand for the identities of members of the governing body’s judicial panel to be revealed.
In April, the Rangers boss demanded to find out the identities of three men who imposed sanctions on the club.
The Scottish FA’s Compliance Officer, Vincent Lunny, recently wrote to the Rangers boss asking him to explain his comments.
However, the issue will not be dealt with fully until the conclusion of the club’s dispute over gaining SFA membership.
Depending on the response he receives, Lunny could issue a notice of complaint against the 49-year-old.
An SFA statement read: “The Compliance Officer communicated with Rangers FC in mid-June to confirm that the matter has been reported and will be initiated through the normal Judicial Panel Protocol upon conclusion of the other outstanding issues affecting the club.”
The Scottish FA’s judicial panel originally imposed a 12-month player registration embargo on the club. The Court of Session ruled in May that the sanction was not available to the panel.
Now the case will be referred back to the governing body’s appeal tribunal, which previously rejected an attempt to overturn it.
McCoist had said: “Who are these people? I want to know who these people are. I’m a Rangers supporter and the Rangers supporters and the Scottish public deserve to know who these people are, people who are working for the SFA.
“Make no mistake about it, this is an SFA decision. They have appointed the panel so therefore they are working for the SFA, but who are they?”
traditionalist88
I don’t know if the board really want to increase their ‘power’ over the club.
Good to be back into talking , mainly, about Celtic on here.
The downside (there is ALWAYSa downside) is the return of unfounded or not thought through negativity.
Already, Murphy is the new whipping bhoy. What chance has he got if he is already being slaughtered based on two meaningless frienlies? Murphy is a far better player than those who jump on the band waggon think. Also on that band-waggon is the group whose mantra includes ” dominant CH needed”. Are we talking a £12 million quality CH? That is what it would cost to get someone substantially better than Charlie Mulgrew and Thomas Rogne. These two are excellent players and Victor is a more than adequate replacement if Rogne continues to suffer from injuries. As regards the much opined need for a quality striker, what exactly is Gary Hooper? I, too, would like GREAT players in every position but temper my views with realism. With what we have already, I am looking forward to seeing a rejuvenated Kris Commons, a rampaging Sammi and an emerging Tony Watt as well as continued improvement from all our young guns. The future is bright, the future really is green and white. I am so looking forward to a season where the joy of watching Celtic is untainted by the presence of that stain of anger that was once Rangers.
JJ
jimmci
re Bocanegra
heard that he was way too slow,
past his best
Jon Lord…….whit a player. A genuine hero tae this old keyboard player. His playing on ‘Highway Star’ is unparalleled. Seriously : it is actually a genius at work…..and I don’t say that lightly. Comparable to Henrik Larsson,if you see what I mean. Awesome runs….killer finish.
Rock In Peace!
HH!
miki67
You’re gonna love this, fellah….
Seen this…?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/citydiary/9405341/City-bankers-charmed-at-the-Square-Mile-scummer-party.html
Aye…In it together….tsk.
Jungle Jim on 17 July, 2012 at 14:15 said:
>>>>>
Too right! ‘They’ are gone from our lives for the foreseeable future….maybe forever. And they’ve got a lot of disgrace to answer for.
And on that note…..I know I keep harping on about it,but I really really really want us to hold on to Big Vic W. Really. The guy has massive potential,and at a time when it doesn’t look like we’ll be buying much in,does it no make sense to keep a player who’s so highly valued outwith Celtic? And we DO have a lot of deadwood we can shift at decent prices,and we’d never get someone as good as V.W. for the price we paid for him. A real asset.
HH!
embramike on 17 July, 2012 at 12:27
nice post
hope you have a great first season
TC
ASonOfDan
On the plus side they can really help attract more fans, especially younger fans, back into the ground for run of the mill SPL matches, when in recent years similiar matches would have been depressingly quiet. More power to them!
HH
i see Chelsea signed a lad called Oscar for 25mill
not a patch on our wee Oscar, tho
‘Within the structure of the program, there were two enduring elements. The first was the “Soul Train Scramble Board”, where two dancers are given 60 seconds to unscramble a set of letters which form the name of that show’s performer or a notable person in African-American history. In describing the person’s renown, the host concluded their description with the phrase “…whose name you should know”. If they completely unscramble the name of the person within the time limit, they win a supply of Johnson Products Company products, including Ultra Sheen and Afro Sheen.’
-could replace the ole Paradise windfall?
Nacho Novo hurting bad, wee shame.
Schadenfreude CSC.
tractorbhoy on 17 July, 2012 at 13:41
Does a recording count as a viewing ?
We could all just set up the game to be recorded and then review,or not…
HH
Lenny has so matured since last year. He is varying himself very well in the few media interviews I’ve watched. He has also had the biggest Pressure a Celtic Manager can have removed.
I think Neil will be our best signing this Euro campaign. I also think detaching himself from the comfort blanket of Alan Thomdon will help him grow further.
I’d go in to the campaign with confidence with existing players.
Our best 11 is a strong team for any opponent to counter.
BRING … IT… ON!!!!
Son of Gabriel on 17 July, 2012 at 13:14 said:
Who?