CELTIC EUROPA LEAGUE DRAW: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Aug 29
- 7 min read
As I write this, it’s about an hour or so since Celtic’s Europa League fixtures for this season were confirmed. It’s not the Champions League, but it’s still thrown up some very interesting, and very challenging ties.
After all, this is still a tournament that involves some of the biggest, and most popular clubs in Europe, and Rangers too.
So, who are Celtic playing? What are our chances of going through? Where are we most likely to pick up the points we need? Let’s take a closer look at this season’s Celtic Europa League Opponents.
Celtic Europa League Draw: Tough, but Doable
One of my friends said: “We’ve literally drawn every team I wanted us to avoid!”
Another said: “We should look to pick up 10 points at home and 5 away.”
So, I think its fair to say that opinion is split on whether or not this is a good draw for Celtic.
However, let’s take each tie individually and see what we can do.
First up is a visit to Celtic Park from a European giant that we’ve never faced in competition before.
AS Roma (Home)
They’re definitely the friendlier of Rome’s two great football sides (let’s face it, Lazio are on the same level of Rangers in terms of likability), but Roma will still provide a very tough test, arguably the toughest of Celtic’s 8 Europa League opponents in the group stages this year.
This isn’t quite the same as the great Roma side of the early 2000s that included the likes of Totti and Batistuta, but this current Roma is still a very strong side. They’ll probably rank amongst the favorites to win the whole tournament.
For Celtic fans, there is also the interesting side-narrative of a trip to Celtic Park for Evan Ferguson. We were briefly linked with the young Irish striker earlier this summer, but, somewhat unsurprisingly he chose the higher football standard, and vastly superior wages offered by Serie A.
Seeing how he shapes up against the club he could have played for will be an interesting watch.
Feyenoord (Away)
This trip over to The Netherlands will, we hope, go far more smoothly than Celtic’s ill-fated visit to Amsterdam a few years ago, when the Ajax hooligans, aided and abetted by their friends in the Dutch police, proceeded to brutalize the Celtic support.
Rotterdam will be far more welcoming for the Celtic support, but we can expect a similarly robust challenge on the park from a well-organized and dynamic Feyenoord side.
Managed by Dutch football legend Robin Van Persie, Feyenoord play with flair and pace, in a style that embodies what everyone loves about Dutch football.
As for players to watch, Feyenoord also have a couple of very decent Japanese players in their squad. Forward Ayase Ueda is currently going head-to-head with Daizen Maeda in a battle to lead the line for Japan at the next World Cup.
Whoever comes out on top in that particular duel will go a long way to cementing their place in the starting line up for the Samurai Blues in America next summer.
Braga (Home)
The Portuguese side were kind enough to take Gustaf Lagerbielke off our hands earlier this summer, and one has to wonder if it is fated that he’ll score against us on his return to Celtic Park.
Hopefully that doesn’t happen. Braga are one of the sides that I would file under “tough but beatable” especially at Celtic Park. They play a more laid back, probing style of football, but are extremely dangerous on the counter attack.
Their best player is probably their right winger, and club captain, 31 year old Ricardo Horta. His return of 94 goals in 255 games for Braga is a decent one, especially for a winger. Kieran Tierney will have to keep an eye on him if Celtic are to get a result.
FK Crvena Zvezda, or Red Star Belgrade to their Friends (Away)
Red Star Belgrade are, in many ways, similar to Celtic in terms of stature. A European Cup winner in the past, and historically the biggest team in their home nation (formerly Yugoslavia, now Serbia). However, the days of geniuses like Robert Prosinecki plying their trade at The Marakana are long gone.
Despite this, their dominance of Serbian football remains. Like Celtic, Red Star won the double last season, their 8th Serbian League title in a row, but didn’t make it into the Champions League.
The player of most interest in the Red Star line up will probably be their veteran center back Milos Veljkovic. The 29 year old previously played in England for Spurs, before going on to enjoy a highly successful time in Germany with Werder Bremen. A lifelong Red Star fan, the Serbian international finally got the chance to sign for his boyhood heroes earlier this year, when his contract with Bremen expired.
Red Star are a sleeping giant with a point to prove. This is an especially dangerous away tie for Celtic. However, it is one where we could get a result, if we play to our strengths.
Sturm Graz (Home)
This is one of two home ties that I think a lot of Celtic fans will look at and think “that’s a banker. We should win that one”.
I would caution against this. To use an old cliché, Sturm Graz are no mugs. We must give them respect, but not too much respect of course.
How we do against the Austrians may actually depend largely on whether or not Celtic follow up on their interest in Sturm Graz forward William Boving. The Danish under-21 star is probably the team’s most consistent performer and certainly one of their most potent goal threats.
Home advantage is a big deal here, and I think that should be enough to see Celtic through, but we need to be cautious. Sturm Graz have been over this turf many times, and they’ve beaten teams far better than this current Celtic side before.
FC Midtjylland (Away)
There’s nothing like a good revenge narrative to set the scene for an otherwise middling Europa League tie. Celtic have previous with Midtjylland. The Danes made sure that Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic reign got off to the worst possible start when they eliminated us over 2 legs from the Champions League Qualifiers back in 2021.
It’s widely accepted that the tie in question came just that wee bit too early for the new Celtic manager and a team still in transition. Had we played the Danish champions even a month or so later, most pundits agree Celtic would have won comfortably. But we didn’t. And history shows that we have a score to settle over in Denmark.
The name from this current Midtjylland side most familiar to Celtic fans is probably Korean striker Cho Gue-Sung.
Around the time Celtic signed fellow Korean international Oh Hyeon-Gyu, we were also heavily linked with Cho. Many in Korea still regard Cho as the better of the two strikers.
It will be interesting to see how the “one that got away” fares when he finally finds himself on the same field as the Celtic team, albeit as an opponent.
FC Utrecht (Home)
I mentioned earlier that there are probably two home games that Celtic fans will see us as strong favorites to win. Utrecht is the second of these, after Sturm Graz. Again though, I would advise against caution and complacency.
Utrecht were the “best of the rest” in The Netherlands last season, behind the dominant trio of PSV, Ajax and Feyenoord. We certainly can’t write them off, but there is no denying that this is one of the weaker teams Celtic will face in Europe, and again a packed Celtic Park will also, hopefully, give us that added edge to see the game through to a winning conclusion.
There’s only one player at Utrecht who will be on the radars of Celtic fans on the night, and that’s our former goalkeeper Vasilis Barkas.
He’s widely regarded as one of the worst goalkeepers to play for Celtic in recent memory, though it was the Covid season, so I think we can forgive him not being at his best, as the whole world kind of went mental for those 18 months or so.
Anyway, I spoke earlier about the “payback” narrative behind Celtic’s clash with Midtjylland. For Barkas, the same applies. Going to a packed Celtic Park and playing the game of his life will probably help the Greek keeper, who by most accounts has gone on to do quite well since leaving Glasgow, a chance to exorcise the demons of 2020.
Personally though, I hope he’ll recapture the form he showed at Celtic, and throw a couple in the net for us!
As Michael Corleone would say: “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.”
Bologna (Away)
And speaking of hard-hitting Italians, Celtic close out their Europa League Group Phase with a trip to Bologna.
Something of a surprise package in recent years, Bologna have punched above their weight in Serie A, and are worthy of their current status as a consistent European entrant.
They won’t be as tough as Roma, however they will have the home advantage, and Celtic are, as we have seen just this week, notoriously poor travelers in European competition.
The player to watch is their Scottish attacking midfielder and club captain Lewis Ferguson.
Another player who was linked with Celtic earlier in his career, but instead chose to head to Italy to challenge himself at a higher standard of domestic football, the gamble has paid off for the Hamilton born 26-year-old. He is the star of this team, and the player who holds their midfield together.
This is about as difficult a final tie as Celtic could get. Personally, I hope we've already done enough to qualify by the time this game comes around.
Final Thoughts
I’m not going to make any sweeping predictions about Celtic in Europe this season. In fact I’ve specifically been told to stop making matchday predictions by a number of readers, who are convinced I’m a jinx!
I’ll say this much though. I think this is a challenging set of matches, but progress is possible, if Celtic get their business done over the next few days and if we turn up on the night.
Those are two big "ifs", of course.
