Celtic will (surely) enter next season’s Champions League qualifying campaign alongside champions from 43 other European nations, competing for only five places in the tournament itself. Attaining one of the five seeded places in the playoff round would be a huge advantage.
Bodo/Glimt (already Norwegian champions) and Olympiakos (7 points clear in Greece) are both higher seeds than Celtic and will take two of the five spaces. This leaves Celtic battling it out with Red Star, Ferencvaros, Copenhagen and Salzburg (all of whom are seeded higher than Celtic) for the three remaining places.
Puskas Akademia are Galloping with nine games remaining and lead Ferencvaros by two points. Ferencvaros have the experience in this race, this one could go to the wire.
Red Star lead by a point with nine games remaining. They visit Vojvodina (sigh) on Saturday, let’s hope our old Novi Sad friends can pull off a result.
Copenhagen’s recent slippage has seen Midtjylland lead by four points with 10 to play in Denmark. In Austria, Salzburg are in exactly the same position, four behind Sturm Graz with 10 to play.
In Croatia Dinamo Zagreb are third, five points behind leaders Rijeka with 10 to play. After a terrible start, Young Boys rallied and are also five behind with 10 to play, although they sit fifth. It looks unlikely Dinamo or Young Boys will be back to next term.
Shakhtar Donetsk’s qualifying win at Hampden in this season’s tournament has clearly taken its toll. They are 10 points adrift with a game in hand and 10 to play. It looks too much of an ask for them.
Although the Premiership race lacks an edge with Celtic enjoying such an impressive lead, there is a lot going on across Europe which affects us. A strong finish from Midtjylland and Sturm Graz could be enough to see us seeded.
Although seeding is important, it’s not everything. 40 clubs enter the tournament before Celtic in earlier qualifying rounds. The best six of these clubs make it to the playoff round, where Celtic and three others enter the tournament.
Six of those 40 countries will get everything right and randomly produce higher than normal achieving champions. I would rather take my chance against an unseeded high-achiever than a better ranked team, but the qualifiers will be a challenge.
Rolling back the years at Somerset Park on Saturday: Victor, Scott and Neil. That’s quite a thing.
77 Comments- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- »
Happy Friday eve all!
May you all have a rare wee BRRB type of day.
HH!
Puskas Akademia are Galloping – major cap doffed rememberence there.
The chance would be a fine thing!
rather than bask in the glories of being a celtic supporter with us mid way through another generation of dominance,
with march not even out yet, being beaten by something calling itself Rangers has set a tone of we are all doomed reportage
we look likely just to stumble to the finish line to win a league, eventually.
our keeper will be out till next christmas.
daizen still with 2 years on his contract, is offered another , but its all a ruse to up his tranfer value and we will sell anyway
we will probably lose to scotlands cup kings saint johnstone in that semi final, treble and season over.
ccv is leaving, or going on a long term injury list.
idah was just a sentimental punt for being irish, and we should try get our money back.
hatate needs to leave like kyogo if he is to make the japan world cup squad
tierney might win a european medal with the arsenal, but he will turn up crocked for celtic.
brendan is using this summer as a stepping stone back to an epl club and thats why no contract extension,
greg taylor, leave on a free, celtics fault.
barrowfield investment to be dwarfed by new murray park from the 49ers.
we will probably lose the champions league qualifier, so thems wont buy anyone
frimpong sell on gives us £7m but it will be banked to give PL a bonus.
oh, and the rangers takeover is still coming , soon, nearly done, signed just waiting on a few details,
oh and peps imminent departure from city.
its bliddy hard work supporting celtic.
and digital tickets on yir phone, what is the world coming to.
Celtic bank balance dips dangerously low at £70M
Daily Rancour
Saint Stivs on 27th March 2025 12:17 pm
Superb!!
‘Under fire’ Brendan Rodgers heading for his Treble Treble
Daily Rainjurz
nae point stressing that much about seedings and having to anally watch all these teams from all those leagues every week just to have another inexact guess as to how it might end for us.
life is too short, its nothing we can affect anyway, so just go do something more productive and wait until its all done and dusted and you can then see for sure our seeding situation!
If we’re not seeded, we’ll be in the champions path and playing one of the seeded champions mentioned in Paul’s blog today. Ferencvaros, Red Star & Copenhagen etc should not be keeping us up at night.
These teams can only dream of having our resources. PTSD from years of mismanagement have clearly taken their toll.
if you can take a breakdown of the technicalities of how we were beaten by thems, i complained as soon as i was home about the rangers time wasting. now it has been quantified – 48 MINUTES WITH THE BALL NOT IN PLAY.
the always excellent celtic exchange with greg robertson. pa, is callum back ?
——————-
A Tactical Analysis Of Celtic v Rangers | Why Celtic Lost The Derby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPAkzwqyOwM
Like a shooting gallery on here,as soon as you post something
daft wee observation,
we are on the cusp of winning a four in a row championship, for only the 16th time in our history,
AIPPLE @ 12.01
May you all have a rerr wee BRRB type day.
Aipple, on the Iron Horse heading in to Glasgow Town for that very purpose. A few hours in the company of five fellow Tims, sinking a few pints of the black stuff while engaging in some grand Tim talk. Whats not to like.
Ave Ave
Kassiesa is a great resource for UEFA qualification, as the article is slightly misleading.
https://kassiesa.net/uefa/seedcl2025.html
4 teams will automatically qualify for the final play-off tie, the champions of Norway (Bodo Glimt), Scotland, Austria and Switzerland. Of those Bodo are higher coef., plus RB Salzburg if they win their league. So that’s definitely 1/possibly 2 of the 5 seeded places in the play-off round taken before qualifying starts.
Teams from all the other leagues will play (potentially multiple) qualifying rounds before reaching the play-off round. Therefore even if the “worst case” clubs win their leagues, there’s no guarantee they’ll reach the play-off round to scupper our seeding chances.
The biggest challenge for me is not the opponent but having the team prepared for the play off round.. This means we need to start preseason early and play the necessary preseason games to get match sharp for a crucial play off. There is so much money at stake and whoever we play will be heavily motivated.
A consideration is incoming transfers being in place before pre-season training starts in order to bed in new signings. Paul Tisdale will have to step up.
Luckily, there is no major international tournament this summer.
I would like to see us tie up this seasons title as early as possible in order to give players a break to ensure they are fresh for pre-season training
Emeraldbee
I’m in town. 😆
EmeraldBee re: hittin the toon
Seem BRRB is also around that part. What a shocker?
Had a fine few beers with a few from on here on St Patrick’s day.
Enjoy!
I’d like to hope that Dermot Desmond is sounding out other American investors, play at there game them over in Govan ,as for Barrowfield how much has it cost to upgrade, why because you can bet your bottom dollar them over in Govan will spend more than us upgrading Murray Park ,that’s what they do anything we do they do more ,jealousy it’s in there gene’s, so Desmond don’t let them be number one they are cheats ,ie not the 49rs,
nay , nay and thrice nay to american investment, listen to David Low for why no.
Barrowfield has cost £12m.
Murray Park had an upgrade refurbishment when Gerard came in, (world class breakfasts and all that),
If any investment comes with the yanks it will not be spending on the training ground, it doesnt drive operational revenues, so why bother ?
we are back to the press being directed via moonbeams.
feel good speculations, because em, ……………. the deal is still not done and they reveleaded it how long ago now ? is that us into week 12 of the due diligence.
i also find it funny how there is a swathe of comparisons with how the group has invested in Leeds, with the reality being they havnt really, they sold a player, bought one for less, havnt invested in infrastrucutre, are upping season tickets by 14%, telling book holders they cannot renew unless they attended 80% of the games, ………… watch as they start to milk them once in the EPL.
meanwhile the backlash from the bearz being told to clean up their supporting act is met with huge online blogger resistance (not rebellion that is too fenieny).
please we are telling you stop singing bigoted songs, being racist and right wing, well just for a wee while till we get youse offloaded, pretty please.
Sonsoferin
You are correct re most of these having to reach the play offs however the draw for the play offs is before the 3rd qualifier and so seeding does apply and there would be an 80% chance of it working against us if we are not one of the top 5 before that point.
As for those who dismiss Red Star, Bodo Glimt, Copenhagen, Shakhtar, Zagreb and RB Salzburg as not being teams we should be concerned about. Your arrogance is matched by your ignorance. These teams will almost certainly have played more competitive games already (in qualifiers or domestics) by the time of the play off and each of them are well backed and funded with higher coefficients and European revenues than we have this past 5 years.
We will be adjusting to player movements out and in and will be in the midst of the usual transfer window melodrama.
Personally I would rather we were seeded as the level of opponent is not likely to be as strong and I would rather we had our best possible chance of qualifying. For me that is better than having an excuse to hurl abuse and blame someone for a failure to win a 50/50 tie.
21 comments in approaching five hours. Has CQN run its course?
HOT SMOKED on 27TH MARCH 2025 4:53 PM
21 comments in approaching five hours. Has CQN run its course?
—————————————-
Brendan Rodgers ate Paul67’s hamster
Hoople 27 Mar 2025: 4/6
⚽🏆❌⚽⚽❌⚽❌⚽⚽⚽❌⚽
⚽🏆❌❌⚽❌❌⚽❌⚽❌❌⚽
🏆🏆⚽❌❌❌❌❌⚽⚽❌❌❌
🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
https://www.celticnewsnow.com/hoople/
#hoople #celtic #celticfc
Earlier today I checked into CQN from a local library terminal.
No adblocks. Totally inaccessable due to the sheer weight of adverts/commercialism.
A complete and utter no no. Cannot imagine anyone wanting to experience that for more than one visit. Not the only reason the blog is out on its’ feet, but got to be a major one.
Not so much a sounding board, more an advertising board.
up next on the news wee bazza at the rousing of the rabble.
when we score we celebrate.
feckin twat.
Nice one Paul.
Hat tip too to Burnley78 who has been all over this.
Bottom line?
We need to beat a decent team over two legs to reach the big time.
And we’re also a decent team.
Bring it on.
A ned then and a ned now.
We can’t do anything to affect the seeding or who we may play – but what we can do is make sure we’re as ready as possible. We may play a team with a few games under their belt.
Why didn’t anyone ask wee Bazza, how is squirting water on rival fans, celebrating 🤔. Wee tough guy trying to win over the bears. Here’s hoping he gets the job, but I very much doubt it, unless the ‘takeover’ doesn’t happen . Good to have Paulo available again.
Maeda Bernardo and……………… James Forrest 💨 fit .
SAINT STIVS on 27TH MARCH 2025 1:29 PM
daft wee observation,
we are on the cusp of winning a four in a row championship, for only the 16th time in our history.
———————————————————-
That’s not something I knew. Of course knew about the 2 9s in a row as well as an early 6 in a row with Willie Maley? But didn’t realise that it will be the 16th of 4 or more in a row, very impressive
Glad to hear James Forrest is fit again.
MH -hoople
Got it, just how trickyw as that!
ty.
Jamesie Forrest
More winners medals than the rest of the league put together.
Gene on 27th March 2025 6:31 pm
We can’t do anything to affect the seeding or who we may play – but what we can do is make sure we’re as ready as possible. We may play a team with a few games under their belt.
—
Completely agree. Possibly the most important games of the new season.
HH.
Should Brendan decide to leave us (perish the thought). but I’d love the BodoGlint guy to take over
KinGLuBO
Glimpt