Coming off back-to-back championships in the Scottish Premier League, Celtic, is looking to ride on the momentum towards next season’s title defence. After walloping the competition with 79 points, +16 over second place Motherwell, Celtic still looks like a club poised for another championship run. In the 2012-13 SPL season, Celtic was the top ranked and most efficient team across the board.
Their shots were 52% accurate and were miles apart from the league in goals at 92. The Celts also gave up the fewest goals with 35, which resulted in a whopping +57 goal difference.
Forward Gary Hooper led the way in the scoring department with 19, followed by attacking midfielder Kris Commons’ 11. Another vital cog in their success was Victor Wanyama’s stellar play holding the midfield, and Fraser Forster’s agility in between the posts, amassing 15 clean sheets for the Glasgow club. Of course it didn’t hurt having a 12th man in the field. Boasting an average attendance of almost 47,000 football crazy fans, Celtic FC has the biggest capacity crowd in the league.
The blueprint of Celtic’s as a champion club could easily be compared to that of Spanish League heavyweights, FC Barcelona. Besides being in the same group during the 2012-13 UEFA Champions League, the Spanish club was also dominant in its respective league. The Camp Nou side were runaway champs in La Liga, sitting at the top of the team standings since week 1, while cementing their status as a favourite to win the title.
Barça has a rich history in football, not just in Spain, but the whole Europe as well. The Spanish team have been fixtures in the upper echelons of tournaments like the Copa del Rey, Supercopa, and the Champions League. And just like their football counterparts, poker is another game that has been making its presence felt in the European circuit. After the widespread popularity of poker in the early part of the 2000s, European countries, including Spain, have been gracious hosts for major poker tournaments like the World Poker Tour, the European Poker Tour, and the World Series of Poker. In general, Spanish players aren’t household names amongst poker fans – except for multi-titlist Spanish star Carlos Mortensen – but with the recent boom of Spanish online poker players frequenting sites like, , it won’t take long for Spain to produce another world champion like the Spanish national football team. Poker may not be as big as football but it sure is steadily rising up the ladder of popularity amongst Spanish patrons.
Celtic may take a page out of Spanish club Barcelona’s playbook. Like Spain’s Barcelona, the Hoops have to keep its main players Hooper and Commons happy, while holding on to others such as Wanyama and Forster. It is a given fact that Celtic is a powerhouse in the SPL, but for the Glasgow fans to experience the biggest stage of European club football, the Hoops have to go the extra mile, and rise above the competition to be considered as one of Europe’s best.