At his presidential inauguration in 1963, Lydon B. Johnson said, “I would give anything not to be standing here today”. It is with a similar sense of mourning that we look at tonight’s Europa League qualifier between two Baltic sides, Spartaks Jurmala and Suduva, to discover who we face in the play-off round. I wouldn’t give anything to be in the Champions League qualifier, but I’d happily concede a few league defeats.
Europa League group stage qualification can be worth up to £10m to Celtic, but even winning the trophy will not come near to closing the financial gap between this tournament and Champions League group stage money. Still, it is an important tournament for reasons other than money.
Accumulating Uefa coefficient points in the Champions League has proven very difficult for Celtic. Winning games in the Europa will be easier; we have to deliver on this target. It is also important to qualify from the group into the knockout stages. We have not faced genuine domestic competition in a very long time, and I see little change this year. As a consequence, we need European action after Christmas. Better teams that Celtic have licked their wounds and got on with life in the Europa League, we need to do the same and prepare for the tournament in a professional manner.
I don’t know if the intervening 16 years have been kind to Suduva since we last met 16 years ago, but they hold a special place in our folklore, so I hope they progress tonight. I also have a great wee story of one man pitching up in the North Stand for a few minutes at the home game, just to be there.
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Rangers do look more organised. Extra men in defence and McGregor looks an upgrade. Jack is a liability and the general squad looks flimsy beyond the first 11.
Maribor are similar in style to us but missing a striker. Rangers are back to Walternacio. If they buy Lafferty it’s back to lunging at players in mid air and the black arts
Rae talks more garbage than I do…
Celtic V FC Suduva UEFA Cup 2002.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvUinkKKjF4
Do you remember the days when we regularly scored from set pieces? Petrov, Lambert, Valgaeren, Sutton, Henke etc and lets not forget Momo Sylla & Steve Guppy.
This guy Ryan Kent has a real hun face…
Sevco pack out the defence, close down well and look fit. We won’t rank them 5-0 but we will comfortably beat them. They’re good enough to get a lot of points in Scotland this year. We’ll need to keep focused and not have too many domestic off days.
Watching the Huns game there it’s clear we’ll have our work cut out in the league this season. Don’t know where the money’s coming from, but they’ve got a solid if unspectacular team. They’re coping with Maribor better than we did Rosenberg and Maribor a better team. Gave up as they don’t look like scoring. Can’t see a defence of Ajer and Hendry getting us a result at Ibrox. Scunnered that our lack of investment has saw us stand still in the race. Classic Lawwell. Seen it all before.
Good score for sevco tonight – 0 0 10 mins left
Rae has one word in his vocabulary. Opportunity (used and misused at least 50 times).
They think its Sudova…
It is now!
Pop quiz.
How many of our current squad would have made MO’N’s starting 11.
Me i’m struggling to think of one perhaps with the exception on KT?
” They’re all trying to get Morelos sent off ”
Alex Rae
My stream has suddenly switched over to a Slovenian TV one!
Maribor a quite poor.
HH!!
CELTICROLLERCOASTER on 16TH AUGUST 2018 8:45 PM
***Helping other kids suffering from cancer in Wee Oscar’s name ***
That’s 2 of the remaining 3 holes sold for this event and they will be called ” WeeOscar4life” and ” CQN loves Wee Oscar”.
Who is going to help contribute towards the final hole. Cost is £100, so 5 @ £20, 10@ £10 , 20 @ £5 or a mix of the above?
22 hrs
From Twitter:
The Oscar Knox Fund ? ?
@Wee_Oscar
6m6 minutes ago
More
We have a few holes still to be sponsored if anyone would like to support. £100 per hole. All proceeds to childhood cancer research! #OscarKnoxCup ?⛳
=======================
Wouldn’t it be good to have a “CQN Love Wee Oscar” hole?
I will go £20. Anybody want to contribute £5, £10 or £20 to help me get to £100.
The legacy goes on in Wee Oscar’s name to help other kids
Email me at cqnpredictor@gmail.com
More than a PL loving/ or bashing football blog :-)
Craig Gordon over Rab
Should also add that Maribor are utter mince. Nothing compared to the previous side we faced.
I doubt we will hear any of “Wits the goalie daein Tom?” with McGregor in goal.
Vital saves in the qualifying rounds have kept The Rangers in the hunt.
Morelos proving a physical handful for all his stupidity.
There should be no complacency that another title is a shoo in. It will need to be worked for. Hard.
setting free the bears for Res. 12 & Oscar Knox on 16th August 2018 8:56 pm
Craig Gordon over Rab
==
Yup, good shout
OGLACH on 16TH AUGUST 2018 8:54 PM
Gordon and Tierney
Any old timers ( like me ) remember holy goalie being told off by police for raising his arms to celebrate v Morton at cappielow early- mid sixties.I remember having a scrapbook and stuff relating to this game.
More or less has one of those petted lip faces you would just love to stamp on, even if he was in your team.
D. :)
Luck favouring them too.
And to prove my point McGreger saves a penalty.
Hopeless!
Maribor couldnae score in the Savoy…
Thought that pen taker for Maribor was gonna collapse, looked absolutely fooked.
AULDHEID on 16TH AUGUST 2018 8:57 PM
I doubt we will hear any of “Wits the goalie daein Tom?” with McGregor in goal.
Vital saves in the qualifying rounds have kept The Rangers in the hunt.
Morelos proving a physical handful for all his stupidity.
There should be no complacency that another title is a shoo in. It will need to be worked for. Hard
—————-
Very perceptive , and any complacency or delusions of grandeur should be put Back in the box.
Huns get a decent result. My week just got worse.
HH.
Agree that they are getting the rub of the green and McGregor is unfortunately a good goalkeeper and architectural Hun.
PeterLatchfordsBelly8.51pm
It’s like we’ve taken a trip back in time to 2008.
Back then we edged the Huns out at the death to win the league. Our prize was automatic entry to the CL and a relatively weak group of Villarreal, Man Utd and Aalborg.
How did we spend the CL bounty?
Made the samaras loan permanent, signed maloney and crosas for buttons and bought a defender from the English championship (loovens). Total spend about £5m.
The Huns went on a spending spree in the same window. Mendes, Coconut heid miller, edu, bougherra, lafferty, Naismith, Davis all came in for around three times what we spent.
What happened next? We came bottom of our CL group, the Huns won the next 3 league titles, it took us 4 years to get back to the CL.
People go on about the Willo Flood window. But the transfer window immediately preceeding it was the real killer.
Tightwads even when CL money was guaranteed and we had won the league by a bawhair.
Sevco will try to do an AEK on us but they’re nowhere near as good on the ball. They’re more of a Kilmarnock than AEK.
Maribor a bit of a toothless beast. Morelos will giving quite a few referees outside of Scotland a decision to make. Apart from Sheep game, where he had a rescinded early bath, he gets away with murder.
Tally 8:56
Yip it was better than listening to Rae’s shite…..
If you told me at the end of the season Rangers would get a draw away v Maribor and put them out I would have questioned your sanity.
david17 on 16th August 2018 9:06 pm
Agree that they are getting the rub of the green and McGregor is unfortunately a good goalkeeper and architectural Hun.
======================================
Whit? Like Hiram Abiff?
Maribor eliminated hapoel beer sheva at the CL playoff last season, drew twice with spartak Moscow and once with Sevilla amongst a couple of poundings from Liverpool.
Its no mean feat for Sevco to beat them with a bit to spare over 2 legs.
An Dun
Kilmarnock took more points off us last season than the died team so I hope they are no Kilmarnock!
good to see them keeping their discipline only the 5 yellow’s.
Overall i would rather see them out but quietly content that they need to travel to Russia days before facing us. They are a threat as it stands and could push us close or even pip us to the Title if we do not improve upon last season and sort ourselves out this. I foresee us dropping many points this season as things stand, we are susceptible to 0-0 draws and 1-0 muggings.
Their squad is threadbare and this early season effort will catch them up as the season progresses. Similarly they are unlikely to cope with European football midweek as they do not have the experience, squad depth or mentality. I also think they lack quality and craft up front. They are however motivated and more hunnish than at any point in their six year existence.
They are very much in the honeymoon period and as such we will need to wait to see how things play out in adversity and when the novelty wears off. The potential and likely challenge however should focus minds at Celtic park.
Quite rightly most are concerned with our defence .
We also need another goal scorer.
We cannot rely on Dembele, Griffiths or Edouard to be fit.
We need to bring in a goalscorer , even if it is just a loan deal.
We will pay for it if we don’t.
TT