Celtic will play three familiar opponents in the Champions League group stage: Barcelona, Benfica and Spartak Moscow. We have a mixed recent record against Barcelona, eliminating them from the Uefa Cup in 2004, but finishing behind them in the Champions League group stage in the autumn of that year. Barca also knocked Celtic out of the Champions League in the round of 16 in 2008. The Camp Nou is the only ground Celtic have managed to avoid defeat on away Champions League duty.
Gordon Strachan’s Celtic eliminated Benfica from the Champions League group stage in 2007 and again in 2008. They also got the better of Aiden McGeady’s current team, Spartak Moscow , in the Champions League play-off round in 2007.
It is a difficult group for Celtic but each of their opponents will be wary of the Celtic.
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Will go to lisbon possibly Barcelona. Moscow no way.
HH
Police have arrested a man who fell into a combine harvester trying to steal it, he’ll be getting out on bail tomorrow.
Will go to lisbon possibly Barcelona. Moscow no way.
HH
tommytwiststommyturns
17:49 on
Group D is feckin awesome though. I would have loved to play Madrid,
======
Be patient, there is always the Round of 16.
Perfect.
“A Dynamic Edge” returns.
What’s not to like?
and relax…o))
PJBhoy
I blame on these new orcs on the site….
And were back….
Daryl Murphy joins Ipswich on loan till the end of the season
Al Neri (chewing the tell-tale orange) to Michael Corleone:
“Difficult. Not impossible.”
Fantastic draw, canny wait for those fantastic European nights. They’ll be the maturity test for our young team. Have a go, nothing to lose and so much to learn for the future.
Thought this was intelligent and thought-provoking: Scotland’s Catholics
may be sacrificing
their influence
Alasdair McKillop
Cardinal Keith O’Brien
The SNP, when it remembers it has a government to run as well as a referendum campaign to fight, plans to introduce a bill that will legalise gay marriage by 2015. Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy first minister, has described legalising gay marriage as ‘the right thing to do’. I would agree wholeheartedly.
Churches and religious groups have been assured that they will not be forced to carry out ceremonies against their wishes, an assurance they seem wary of accepting. The Catholic Church has been the most high-profile opponent of the proposed legislation and a spokesman has described it as ‘a dangerous social experiment on a massive scale’. The Free Church is also strongly opposed. On the other side, the Equality Network, Human Rights Commission, Scottish Youth Parliament and National Union of Students are among those who have supported the idea. The last two are a reminder that in there is probably a significant generational divide lurking beneath the surface of this debate.
As with many issues that have a religious dimension, particularly contentious issues, the Church of Scotland seems happy enough to abdicate its responsibility to the bishops. R D Kernohan has recently lamented the timorous nature of the contemporary kirk and the gay marriage debate has provided little evidence that this is likely to change. The Catholic Church has been left to do the difficult and thankless work of articulating a religious perspective on the proposed legislation. And what a spectacularly poor job it has been doing so far.
Perhaps the most contentious, not to say dispiriting, development to date was the suggestion from Philip Tartaglia, the new Archbishop of Glasgow, that the death of MP and former Scottish office minister David Cairns was somehow linked to his sexuality. Despite Tartaglia offering to meet Mr Cairns’ partner, his assertions were seemingly supported by Peter Kearney from the Catholic Media Office when he appeared on the current affairs programme ‘Scotland Tonight’.
Elsewhere, Bishop Hugh Green of Aberdeen, in an interview with the Scottish Catholic Observer, asked, ‘Why is it all right for a man to marry another man, but not all right for him to marry two women?’. He added: ‘If we really want equality, why does that equality not extend to nieces who genuinely, truly love their uncles?’. The recent furore prompted Graham Spiers to write an article in the Scotsman, defending Cardinal Keith O’Brien from what Spiers seemed to consider an unrelenting onslaught of hostile opinion. Leaving aside the fact that O’Brien hasn’t been particularly prominent in recent weeks and months, some of Spiers’ statements were a little odd. He applauded the cardinal for using ‘brisk’ language that Spiers himself noted had included likening homosexuality to slavery and labelling same-sex marriage grotesque. One imagines that the people affected by these comments would have described them as something other than ‘brisk’.
It seems that the Orange Order is the only other organisation willing to match the Catholic Church in its determination to oppose gay marriage. The September edition of The Orange Torch contained this rather ambiguous claim about the SNP government: ‘…on this issue, as on so many others, they betray a supine willingness to bend to well orchestrated international campaigns that undermine Scotland’s bedrock Christian morality’. It raised the spectre of legalised polygamy at some point in the future after the definition of marriage had been distorted beyond all recognition.
The two failures that have truly characterised the debate to date have been the inflammatory and insensitive use of language and a wilful lack of empathy. It is the occasionally apocalyptic and usually judgemental language that the Catholic Church uses that is the most off-putting. One wonders if, at any stage, these two groups have been given pause for thought by noting their ally on this issue. The debate also raises challenging questions about the role and influence of religious voices in contemporary debates, an issue handled admirably by ‘Scotland Tonight’ and Patrick Harvie MSP in particular.
But aside from this it might be noted that ‘religious voices’ has increasingly become shorthand for the Catholic Church through a combination of its own assertiveness and the previously noted reluctance of the Church of Scotland to articulate a coherent position with any determination. The Catholic Church remains a formidable political operator. It is tenacious in defending its interests and values by means of interventions from the hierarchy, the Catholic Media Office and Michael McGrath at the Scottish Catholic Education Service. But its prominence also rests on the assumption that it can deliver votes for the political parties favoured by the hierarchy.
In what is an apparently secular age our politicians, at least implicitly, seem happy to court votes based on people’s religious identity. Labour has a historically close relationship with the church and it has been suggested that the SNP has been trying to engineer an act of political adultery. Gay marriage could spell the premature end of this courtship but would Labour and the Catholic Church re-embrace and for what purpose? Old times’ sake? How would Scottish politics look and sound without an informal relationship between the Catholic Church and one of the main political parties?
The church has often displayed a rather truculent attitude towards politics since devolution (note the late Cardinal Winning’s pronouncement that devolution was a failure because the section 28 controversy didn’t go the way the Catholic Church hoped) but it gives every appearance of regarding the issue of gay marriage as fundamental and it has every right to express this viewpoint (though how it does so really leaves something to be desired). But in opposing the planned legislation it might be in danger of sacrificing a position of influence that past generations worked hard to secure.
Alasdair McKillop is a PhD student in history at the University
of Edinburgh
http://www.scottishreview.net/AlasdairMcKillop11.shtml
Hello???
It’s not the winning it’s the taking part.
OK………………………….
I admit it………………………….
I broke the blog……………………………..
WHEN are the games…………………………….
BigJoetheBLOGbarker
McCoist gets off with putting a man’s life in danger due to his irresponsible comments.
The SFA should hang their heads in shame. They are corrupt to the core in favour of one club
See the Huns got off scot free, corruption still reigns, life threatening incitement is a 3 game ban Suspended for 12 month, disgrace.
Joe
no dates set as yet..
and we’re back. For now.
the more things change in Scotland..
The gaffer not happy on twitter.
Neil Lennon@OfficialNeil
I think itv owe us an apology
To do with the “ bye bye Celtic comment
BigJoesayingNOWT
Who was sitting on the panel, I think we should know :o(
2nd in the group is not a completely ridiculous idea and 3rd is a real possibility on route to the EL final!
Dates being arranged as we speak.
blantyretim
19:12 on 30 August, 2012
Joe
no dates set as yet..
cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeers, bet i am awy for the Camp Nou game.
BigJoewithNOluck
Liking the draw.
Attractive games against good opposition, two nice trips to big named european teams.
Nothing to lose, everything to enjoy.
A real chance in my opinion of european football after Christmas – CL or EL – as it is not just our results that see us through – I expect Barca to sail through and the other three teams to take points from each other.
When do we know the fixtures?
‘Mon the Hoops!
Good evening fellow Celts
Paul67 has just reminded us we have nothing to fear and a lot I play for.
These boys will be thinking about the 3 points they have already lost at CP :)
a point at Barca or 3 at the stad de luz … and we woyld be rocking
A right guid draw btw
HH
19/9 Celtic-Benfica, 2/10 Spartak-Celtic, 23/10 FCB-Celtic,7/11 Celtic-FCB, 20/11 Benfica-Celtic, 5/12 Celtic-Spartak.
Cannae wait…
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
don’t the 4th sesssssseed get the first seeeeeeeed in the first and last game.
Or am I insane…………………………
don’t all answer that………………………………..
bigJoequiteMAD
Will probably go to Barca (again!) with GB Jnr. Last time I was there we knocked em out of the UEFA Cup before we got done by the Yellow Submarine. Good group though. We have a wee chance.
BringitonCSC
Barrie @Barriebhoy79
@ObanEmeraldCSC Sept 19 Benfica(h); Oct 2 Spartak Moscow (a);Oct 23 Barcelona(a); Nov 7 Barcelona (h); Nov 20 Benfica (a);Dec 5 Spartak M(h)
C’mon Lenny’s Young Lions…
rt,
Wouldn’t be too sure about barca after the way they played last night
BT
I think you are correct, of course.
But I was referring to two other things:
The challenge of Champions league opponents. Where we should be…
And, well, my favorite anagram of one of our former players.
Nice to see iniesta get the trophy the Madrid poster boy looked gutted lol
SFTB …. Funnily enough I can see Aiden coming back and getting shown how to do it by our jamesy….
He will be tracking back against Forrest more than the other way
Ten Men Won The League
19:11 on 30 August, 2012
McCoist gets off with putting a man’s life in danger due to his irresponsible comments.
The SFA should hang their heads in shame. They are corrupt to the core in favour of one club
==============================
Be fair. It isn’t just one club. It’s Old Rangers and New Rangers they corrupt themselves for.
Whatever else we say we can’t accuse them of not being even handed with all the teams that have used Ibrox Stadium as their home ground. All two of them.
23 Oct Barcelona v Celtic
07 Nov Celtic v Barcelona
Cybertims@Cybertims
Messi. “el jugador del celta que realmente me preocupa es Kelvin Wilson”
Maybe it’s because I don’t speak Spanish and had to scratch my head over every word that made this really tickle me.
From Uefa, full fixtures and dates;
http://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/competitions/Draws/01/85/36/38/1853638_DOWNLOAD.pdf