Celtic in the UEFA Champions League 2024-25

Having had 24 hours to think about that result last night, and with the benefit of seeing the results tonight it’s turned out to not be the biggest disaster albeit still disappointing as it’s a game we really should’ve been winning.

The Brugge game I don’t see as a missed opportunity to be honest, if we’re being totally realistic they’re probably a better side than us and on another night we’d have been 2 or 3 down before equalising, certainly would’ve in seasons gone by.

If I’d been offered 9 points at this stage, knowing a win at home against the poorest side in the competition guarantees a knock out game, I’d have snapped your hand off. However the game against Young Boys needs to be a totally different approach from last night where we were just far too safe and cautious. Having watch bits of some of their games, and going off some of the rankings they’ve taken if we go after them from the off they’ll crumble then last nights performance can be put to bed. We clearly learnt our lesson after the Dortmund game, so no reason to think we won’t have last night either.

The other thing we shouldn’t forget, in the results which we’d say were great for us, Atalanta and Leipzig, we rode our luck at times. Atalanta absolutely leathered us for 60 minutes but couldn’t score and for 10 mins after going 1-0 down to Leipzig they could’ve, and probably should’ve put us to bed. Important to remember that when thinking about the Brugge and even more so Zagreb results. Even last night, but for a great save from Schmeichel near the end, we leave there with nothing. Overall it’s been a good campaign with learning points to take both in terms of being more pragmatic in games but also being a bit more adventurous too. Win our next game as we should then it’s been a great one and any game after that, for me, becomes a bit of a free hit.

 

Beat YBs and we are through, simple as that.

For us to go out…
Say we lose to YBs, we are still on 9 points in 21st place.
From below us, PSV beat red star, they move to 11 points, we go 22nd.
Assume Stuttgart beat Slovan, they move to 11 points, we go 23rd.
City vs PSG…PSG win, they go to 10 points, City win they go to 11 points, if it’s a draw City go to 9 points with better GD than us, any which way we end up in 24th.
Zagreb play Arsenal so likely to lose and remain on 8 points, leaving us clinging on in 24th place heading to Villa.

If we then lose to Villa and remain on 9 points, there’s a number of teams that can overtake us.
If PSG beat Stuttgart they move to 10 points and we are out.
If Zagreb win at home to Milan, they go to 11 points and we are out.
If City beat Brugge, they move to at least 11 points, even if they lose to PSG the round before.

That’s not counting the chances of any of Sparta, Shakhtar, Girona, Salzburg, Red Star or Sturm Graz pulling it out of the bag and winning their last 2 games, all of which can overtake our points haul.

So 9 points, barring some freak results, will not be enough.

If we draw with YBs and lose to Villa, we end up on 10 points.
Assuming the same scenario of results, as mentioned above happens, then we are in a GD scenario for 24th place with Stuttgart, and possibly a few more, to clinch that last remaining spot.
We are on 0 GD now.
Stuttgart are on -3 now, but play Slovan next so could easily win by a few.
Then it just depends on who loses by more on final match day, us vs Villa, or them vs PSG.

So, imo, 10 points will probably end up not being enough either.

 

Basically we need to beat YBs

 

In a nutshell!

 

I think the Leipzig game and what's followed has knocked us all a bit. It does feel like missed opportunities. But swap around the Brugge and Leipzig results and everyone would be pretty delighted overall!

Bratislava - W
Dortmund - L
Atalanta - D
Leipzig- D
Brugge - W
Zagreb- D

Somehow reads better than drawing our last 2. Regardless though we'd have all taken 9 points from 6 games at the start .

1 win needed at home against the worst team in the tournament and we're in the playoff. We're in a wonderful position.

Exciting stuff!

 

YB is now a MUST WIN.

Looking at that table boils my *.

What a * missed opportunity to actually qualify straight through

 

The table's so open, win our last couple of games and we would probably be looking at going straight through to RO16. As things stand, we're near the bottom of the teams hoping to make the playoff round.

Last night actually * me off more than any game this season. Like I was gutted after the Dortmund game but I'm still raging at our attitude as a team last night.

 

I don’t think Brugge are better they are well drilled but have nothing going forward at all last 3 results built on luck a mental penalty a brain fart of a own goal and a Lisbon team struggling after losing their manager


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We all wanted the team to be more cautious in Europe....

Stop moaning ,a point wasn't a bad result even though it could've been better.

 

I think the source of our frustrations has been knowing exactly how well we can play (e.g. the Leipzig game) and not even coming close to that level against Brugge or Zagreb.

Now here we'll have our last home game of the league phase, against the worst team on paper, a must-win as well so maybe dial down the "pragmatism" a little bit. Mainly though we just want Celtic to show up and give a good account of ourselves. We want big performances from key players.

This has been quite a mixed bag of a campaign. Really need to put an exclamation point on it with a strong result here, anything else risks tipping the whole thing into "bad season in europe" territory.

 

Not stat mad but one of them would be if
- we lose to Young Boys and Aston Villa
- PSV get at least 1 points from remaining two games and goal difference isn’t worse than ours.
- PSG get at least 2 points from their last two games
- Stuttgart beat Slovan Bratislava
- Man City get at least one point.
- Dinamo Zagreb get 2 points from last two games.

If we lose both games and 3 of the above 5 happen we are out. There are obviously things like if Sturm Graz win both games and turn over a Goal difference deficit but that could apply to all the teams on 3-4 points, the reality is they all have hard games with top 8 chasing teams. So I have listed the probable scenarios above.

If we draw with YB and lose to Villa
- PSV get at least 2 points
- Feyenoord get another point or our GD falls to lower than theirs
- Man City need two points
- Club Brugge another point or their GD to finish better than ours
- Stuttgart get at least 3 points and overturn GD or get 4 points.
- PSG need 3 points at least.
- Dinamo Zagreb get at least 3 points or 2 and our GD collapses.
- Man City get at least 3 points.

So if 5 of 8 above happen we would be out. Goal Difference depending on results could see us sneak through or go out as apart from Dinamo Zagreb everything else there is fairly likely.

If we win against YB and lose or draw against Villa, we qualify for the knockout in a non seeded spot, likely somewhere between 17th (if we get 4 points) and 21st.


2 wins would likely see us in to 12th to 14th, so seed play off but would likely need Sporting, Brugge and Benfica to not have good results. Highly unlikely as Villa will likely need two wins in their last two games to make top 8.

 

Maybe we’re trying to game the system for the playoff. Maybe Gavin Strachan’s running sims realtime in his MacBook to work out where we want to finish to draw which teams.

 

Just watched the Juventus v City highlights there...

Schmeichel > Ederson

 

Hoping we pull out the Brest

 

I disagree I think their just above us but below the likes of Benfica etc... On another night we could have been pumped. But against Zagreb we are clearly above them that's why we are disappointed we did not test them at all.

 

Watched the game last night. Think that was him back after being dropped as well.

 

A nice visual of how the knockouts are going to work.

 

Be afraid, Cedric Itten is YB's main striker. Seriously though it would be really embarrassing to be the only club they get points from, we have to go all out on this one. Looking at the possible outcomes posted earlier the Dortmund game really * us.

 

Made £33m from participation fees and points accumulated to date that's without a ticket sale!!!

 

Dortmund score line didn’t make that much difference if we lost 2-1 instead of 7-1 we would still only be 1 place higher than we are now.
We just need to make up for it by winning our 2 remaining games.