Celtic will play in the Europa Conference for the first time ever in February- completing their route through three UEFA competitions in one season.
Last night’s 3-2 defeat in Leverkusen means that the final Europa League group match at home to Real Betis in two weeks is of academic interest only with the Spaniards going through in UEFA’s second competition.
Ange Postecoglou’s side will face one of the eight runners-up from the Conference groups which could see Spurs, Roma or Basel in Glasgow with the matches scheduled for February 17 and 24. The draw will take place on Monday December 13 at 1pm.
The eight winners of those ties will then join the eight Conference League winners in the last 16 as the competition progresses in traditional style.
1. 3rd place in the group takes us to the Conference League knockout round in February.
We’ll play one of the Conference runners-up for a place in the last 16.
Confirmed potential opponents so far are Maccabi Tel-Aviv from group A. The other groups still have to be sorted.
— Moravcik67 (@Moravcik67_) November 25, 2021
2. Here’s who we could play
A – Maccabi Tel-Aviv
B – Partizan Belgrade, Anorthosis Famagusta or Flora Tallinn
C – Bodo Glimt or Roma
D – Randers or Jablonec
E – Slavia Prague or Union Berlin
F – Slovan Bratislava or PAOK
G – Spurs or Vitesse
H – Basel or Qarabag— Moravcik67 (@Moravcik67_) November 25, 2021
Ah well. Was a bloody good effort. We held our own against a very good team for much of the game.
There’s a good foundation to build upon there. The board need to back AP in the market in January, and let him add some quality and depth to the squad. But we all knew that.
— Moravcik67 (@Moravcik67_) November 25, 2021
In normal circumstances matches against Spurs or Roma could be described as glamour ties but with those sort of clubs prioritising domestic league performances their enthusiasm for the Conference is questionable.
In five group matches Spurs have picked up seven points from Group G, Roma have collected 10 points from five matches in Group C including a 6-1 defeat to group leaders Bodo Glimt.
Who gives a fck. That game last night was ours and he fckd it up. Honeymoon is over Ange. Substitution were terrible. 2-1 up and you put on like for like. Need to learn how to defend a lead and it sure ain’t attack with Johnson,abada and Ajeti. Montgomery Scales and Shaw would’ve been better option to shore it up and still have that wee bit of forward thinking from Montgomery. Dont give me the
Not enough on the bench nonsense there was enough and if you alter the tactics it will work. Cant be bombing forward all the time as you see what happens.
O’ ye of little faith. You sound like a hun.
At 2-1 we were pretty much in control but taking off Kyogo and Jota only to replace them with sub-par players who aren’t good enough for the system (i.e. Johnston and Ajeti) is going to lead to problems. The system was working up to that point and if he could replace like-for-like in a quality sense I think we would have seen out the game. Removing our main attacking threats immediately relieved the mental pressure on Leverkusen and they started punishing us for it. They are a top team and we were leading at their ground for a large portion of the game, something you wouldn’t have thought possible after the first game against them at CP, so the system very clearly is working.
If Ange can get in decent quality in January we’ll push on again. Ajeti (lazy, wrong type of player for the system) and Johnston (decent but not good enough for Celtic) shouldn’t play for us again after Christmas, in fact get their replacements early and punt the two in the same window.