Celtic v Elfsborg - CL Qualifier - Wednesday 31 July 19.45pm (NOT ON TV)

That put a smile on my face. Great reply, I salute you, Sir.

 

I'd be worried about this tie even if we still had Wanyama and Hooper on our books - that's just the nature of European qualifiers for me, unless there is an extreme gap in quality between the sides (like the Cliftonville tie).

I have more confidence this time round because of our exploits in Europe last season, but selling two of our main players with no replacements has put a dent in that confidence. I'd like to think we'd still be too strong for Elfsborg, but that remains to be seen.

There is also the fact that shock results happen quite regularly in football - look at the BATE Borisov, FC Utrecht and St. Johnstone ties this week for that.

Anybody know what type of team Elfsborg are? Will they have a go at us at Celtic Park, or will they just defend and try to take a decent result back to Sweden?

 

I fully agree with you Moros. It will not be easy and the fact that Hooper is gone as well is worrying. We will need to be much more clinical than against Cliftonville...

 

Its all to do with the old firm and the north eire thing, take away ourselves and the dead then Scottish fitba would be smaller.

 

Plenty of 8-15 about.

I was looking last night and was thinking about -1 at 9-10 on the Asians.

 

Got my ticket this morning, looking forward to this game. Interested to see this Elfsborg side, the last round result isn`t really a marker for how good they may be.

 

Suspicions that the Elfsborg match may have been fixed.

http://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/fotboll/sverige/allsvenskan/elfsborg/article17195955.ab

In Swedish.

 

What Elfsborg match ?

 

7-1 one

 

They were playing a Latvian team why would they match fix it ?

 

It`s the Latvian team who are the subject of the fixing- lost 6 goals in 30 minutes the other night.

 

Is this game on tv?

 

Be good to se you all in sweden again, last time was magnificent. Heard the plane tickets were expensive, * ryanair. just put in a few more flights i say!.

Hope to get my tickets on monday, the whole ticket agency thing is chaos as usual..

 

Will be on somewhere. The 2nd leg is on BBC Scotland. Just been announced today.

 

It is more likely that their absolutely gash

 

Latvia is the most corrupt country I've ever had the misfortune to visit. So I would be surprised. Run by Russians.

 

I have watched Elfsborg a lot. I live in Gothenburg which is about 40 min from Borås. I think they are better than Helsingborg were last year, but I don't think the difference is that big, as the Swedish league is very competitive with teams shifting about winning the league and last time a team won the league twice in a row was about 10 years ago. No Swedish team has qualified to Champions League in about 14 years. Elfsborg is one of the more technical and playing teams in the Swedish league. They are also very strong on artifical pitch, last season the stats were ridiculous. I think they took 70 percent (or even more) of all their points in the Swedish league on artificial pitch (we have a few of those in Sweden). The team were really struggling on a proper football pitch, while other teams that played on proper grass were struggling on the artificial pitch in Borås Arena. Most complaints regarding the pace and bounce of the ball.

I think we need to get a strong result in the first game as a game on artificial pitch at their home ground can be tricky. We have to break their game plan down, not let them rule the game, because they will be good in that. Overall, Celtic are better on every position, no doubt about that, but football is not won on paper and its a qualifier which always can be tough. Elfsborg will put up a fight, be certain about that.

Another thing, Borås is a calm city and their fans have very few hooligans and are calm in general. I read that there were some problems in Helsingborg last year, but I would be surprised to see this happen in Borås. There should be no problems at all, and I think the Elfsborg fans would really enjoy meeting fans from Celtic. I believe they will understand what a great institution Celtic are and will try to capture a bit of the atmosphere. I also think they would love to experience the respectful and friendly atmosphere from Celtic fans that so many teams talk warm about. This does not exist in the Swedish league.

I hope to see you there, we will have a gathering of Swedish Celts as last time. I'm hoping we will beat our number from last time, which I estimated between 50-100.

 

Doesn't matter mate, we'll have the DFG Djurgarden hooligans there to aid us!

Plan to spend a few days in Borås - hope the weather stays kind to us.

 

Will rudnevs be playing.

 

Who?