KAIRAT ALMATY: CELTIC SHOULD BEAT THEM, BUT WE CAN’T UNDERESTIMATE THE KAZAKHS
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Aug 13
- 2 min read
A lot of fuss seems to be being made online today about the arduous 11-hour flight Celtic will face when they go to Kazakhstan to face Kairat Almaty. Concerns are also rife about the fact that this comes just a few days before our first Glasgow Derby against Ibrox’s Temu Tribute Act.
The journey itself doesn’t actually concern me that much. OK, I’ll admit whenever I fly back and forth between Scotland and Japan, a journey which usually involves a 12-hour flight to somewhere in Europe and then a 1-3 hour flight up to Scotland, I am absolutely wiped out for about 3 or 4 days afterwards.
However, writers like me don’t earn as much as some of my more critical commenters seem to think I do, and I always fly economy class.
If you’ve ever seen me on ACSOM you’ll know I’m about 18 inches too tall and probably about 4 or 5 stone too heavy for the average, economy seat on a plane to be anything resembling comfortable.
Kairat Almaty: Celtic Could Have Drawn Worse, but This Won’t be Easy
Celtic’s players and staff won’t have that problem. Even a group as allergic to spending as our current board will, I’m sure, at least pay for the team to fly business class and, therefore, hopefully, get a good sleep on the plane.
We also have players such as Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate and Alistair Johnston, for whom midweek long-haul flights out of Scotland to play for their national teams are now the norm.
No, truth be told, I’m far more worried about our opponents themselves.
Kairat Almaty are not a great football team. I didn’t rate them particularly highly before I saw them edge past Slovan Bratislava on penalties and that view hasn’t changed.
They are, however, a well-organized, workmanlike side, who, through grit, determination and at times, sheer force of will, managed to see off what I think was a technically superior team, in Bratislava.
In other words, they are exactly the kind of team Celtic seem to struggle against these days. Stuffy, physical, hard to break down, and utterly single-minded in their attempts to prevent their opponents doing anything creative.
Celtic will, I hope, go all out to kill this tie as a contest at Celtic Park. However, I would say that anything less than at least a 3 or perhaps even 4-goal victory, and this contest isn’t over.
We saw just last night how
almost blew a 3-0 first leg advantage against a team vastly inferior, in my opinion to Kairat Almaty. Celtic should take confidence going into our first Glasgow Derby from that, but it also highlights why we need to be extremely careful when we head to Kazakhstan.
With Kairat Almaty, Celtic got a good draw. It’s certainly a far easier one than our debt-dodging friends across the Clyde got. However, this isn’t a foregone conclusion and we need to be careful.
