Malmo coach Age Hareide believes that being paired with Celtic is the perfect draw for his side.
Despite struggling in mid-table as they attempt to retain the title Malmo pulled off one of the best results of the round by beating Salzburg 3-0 to go through on a 3-2 aggregate.
Hareide was in charge of Helsingborgs when they lost out to Celtic in 2012 but feels confident that he can steer Malmo to success this month.
“It is absolutely perfect!,” he told the official Malmo website after hearing the draw. “I have faced Celtic once before in Play Off to the Champions League when I was coach of Helsingborg.
“Then we had a bad time after we lost 0-2 in the home game. If only we can get a good starting position after the match in Scotland so we have good experience of doing good result here in Malmö.
“It feels like their way of playing suits us very well and we have an eye on Celtic. I watched some of them last year and now we will be able to see them on Wednesday.”
Ronny Deila turned down an offer to manage Malmo in January 2014 with fellow Norwegian Hareide taking charge soon afterwards.
On Sunday Malmo are at home to league leaders IFK Gothenburg looking to eat into the seven point gap between the two teams. IFK, who have Thomas Rogne in defence, drew 0-0 at home with Belenenses of Portugal last night to exit the Europa League on a 2-1 aggregate.
Former Celt Jo Inge Berget is Malmo’s top scorer this season with seven goals from 14 league matches, midfielders Enoch Adu and Markus Rosenborg will be suspended for the first leg against Celtic on August 19.
Malmo are a good outfit, as there result at home showed. However they where very lucky to only lose 2-0 in the first leg. If we apply ourselves like we did in the last round, we can get thru to the group stages once again.
Glasgow Celtic 1888 (UNBROKEN )
HH
” We are a better team than Celtic ” – Malmo manager.
Just you keep talking pal…….
If you spell malmo backwards you get omlam !
two very tough games, but as we know there are no easy games at any point in Europe whether it be qualifiers or group stages, but so long as we keep our 100% professionalism, determination and focus we should be okay
Tough game for us, but equally tough for them. When you look at the full draw you realise that it could have been even harder. Rapid Vienna did well to beat Ajax (Great result) then draw Shakhtar…..good enough for them considering a truly shocking tackle during the game by Vienna player.
We certainly need to sharpen up a bit, Brown needs to keep his cool and not rise to the bait and our striker(s) need some quality service