Celtic in the UEFA Champions League 2024-25

It’s just so gutting. But we go again next season.

The league phase will not be as kind again - we got a good draw this season so I expect the games to be more difficult next year. But we’ve proven we have learned (from Dortmund) and can handle tough opposition, even away from home in Europe…

 

I think we underplayed against them not that they were bad I just thought we weren't that good that night mate

 

The Zagreb away was a flat performance, we should have won that game.. we were unadventurous..

An excellent campaign though, just back Rodgers now.. and build from this.

 

I'd sat it was our best go in the CL since Martin O'Neill.

Pumped Bratislava who are mediocre but still had to do it, pumped Leipzig also who were a good team, held our own away to Atalanta who are a good team although probably should have lost, bit of a 50/50 game against Club Brugge who are probably underrated and actually looked a level above us, done quite well against Aston Villa away with a weakened team and no bench and then two 50/50 games against Bayern who have elite players.

Two blemishes were Dortmund where we were a bit unlucky in that everything they seemed to hit went flying into the net but we also played into their hands pressing them like dafties and leaving ourselves wide open. Then Zagreb away where we basically sat on a 0-0 and never really tried to win a game that looked really easy during the game but 8 decent games out of 10 you'd take every season.

 

Important to remember that we need to qualify first. They won’t be easy games.

 

I just watched the highlights of Atalanta vs Brugge and I think that has made me more sick. Brugge had 2 good chances and a half chance in that game and scored 3 goals, Atalanta had a goal offside, hit the woodwork a few times, missed a penalty and their captain lost the plot and got himself sent off.

Compare that to us and we got one goal from around 5 good chances, a goal allowed to stand at the end that should have been ruled out and potential red card not checked. Yea Bayern hit the bar in the game but we probably had the better chances.

Club Brugge will be heralded as a great success, and they have done excellent in recruitment and looked a good side when we played them but they haven’t half carried some amount of luck which is a factor you can’t control. The penalty they got against Villa was a farce, CCV own goal against us was another freak scenario and that tie against Atalanta everything that could go their way has, they got a questionable penalty in injury time of the first leg on top of all that going for them last night.

 

Only poor game was Dortmund. We should have pushed for the win in Zagreb but it was still a respectable result away from home.

More raging with the officiating in both Bayern games. I can remember us getting one free kick last night, sure it was in the 73rd minute. Then the whole Maeda thing as well. Disgraceful but expected.

 

Hopefully after last nights performance we might prove a bit more attractive for some players come the transfer window, getting to be part of that next season !!

 

So proud, but gutted.

We've shown Europe that we're still here.

 

We are not getting that back anytime soon we are heading in the opposite direction as strong years drop off over the next couple of years.

As things stand Scotland are 14th with Denmark and Switzerland just behind us and Austria a little ahead. We want both Danish teams out of Europe this Thursday as the top 14 get their champion straight into one qualifier for the year after next (26/27).

However, before a ball is kicked in 25/26 European football Scotland is due to fall to being 17th so will have our work cut out to get up the table again to even keep 2 CL teams and 5 teams in Europe.

Climbing higher will be a challenge as long as Scotland only has two clubs really contributing points and those getting divided by 5.

In terms of making top 10 again I would be confident in saying it will be a good few years before we get close to that. There is some interesting dynamics in that Scotland would benefit from only having 4 teams so that points won are only divided by 4 and not 5, because our 5th placed team don’t really contribute much. Also if we actually get through qualifiers they accumulate a lot of points from winnable ties. This could also help club coefficient and should actually be what Celtic need to focus on as we are along way down the list and only really have one decent season counting for us next year onwards. Rangers also have two strong years dropping off the next two so depending how they go from here this season their places may drop quite significantly without strong seasons for the remainder of this one and next.

 

Yeah qualifiers for the foreseeable and whether we are better placed will come down to how we operate in the summer market both in terms of ins and outs.

The one good thing with one qualifier is it isn’t until mid August, so we will have our league campaign started and can do preseason as normal.

 

Looks like we'll just have to win the * next season then

 

This is exactly my thought.

If you hear that we're interested in you, you're going to take notice after last night.

Hoping we back Rodgers now. We have a potentially tough qualifier coming up in the summer.

 

I also think this new champions league is more appealing too rather than the old one. 2 extra games now with 2 of them being after Christmas, then the play offs mid February if we qualify for them.

 

Unless hibs, hearts and Aberdeen get their * together probably never.
Lesser countries than us are racking up points in the conference league now making it even more difficult.

 

I see we have made 38m from the group stage, is there a breakdown of it or is that an AGM thing?

 

The downside is we will more than likely revert to type, sooner rather than later, and wait to see if we qualify before buying anyone.

 

This is absolutely the problem... Ourselves and the Huns have very good TEAM coefficients, so we get reasonable seeding once we qualify, but the country coefficient is crippling us on the holistic level because NOONE else seems to be able to put together anything, against even average opponents...

Personally, if we get a single team in the cl, with them seeded for a single round, that's about as good as we can expect. That'll only change again if we/them go on a really long Euro run or smash some major teams to get a huge shift by winning outright in the group stages or suchlike, and even then we'd probably need to do it together or for consecutive seasons...