CELTIC may have failed to reach the Champions League this season after the disappointing results against AEK Athens but if we thought that we’d be up against a lower quality of opponent in the Europa League then we would be sadly mistaken.
Rosenborg may be a Europa League standard team, sadly a little like Celtic at the moment but the other two sides look more than capable of holding their own in the Champions League.
Last season Celtic were in a group that had both Paris St Germain and Bayern Munich are were unable to take anything from these two sides. We seemed to annoy the French Champions by taking the lead in Paris then suffered the consequences. We held our own against the German Champions at Parkhead under the lights and were unlucky to go down to a 2-1 defeat.
Anyone who is of a nervous disposition look away now. If we have a glance at the Bundesliga table we’d see that Dortmund are the leaders and that Bayern Munich are in an uncharacteristically low, sixth postion. Hertha Berlin are just ahead of them in fifth, Werden are in fourth, our old friends Borussia Monchengladbach are one place ahead in third and guess which side is in second spot?
You’ve guessed it – RB Leipzig who Celtic play next Thursday in Germany.
RB Leipzig, whose league position suggests that they are on course for automatic Champions League Group stage qualification next season, were shocked in their opening Euorpa League match at home to their sister Red Bull club, Salzburg.
The Austrian Champions, who have enjoyed a perfect start to the season in their league and are well clear at the top, have set aside their surprising failure to reach the Champions League by winning in Germany and taking care of Celtic in fairly comprehensive manner in the second match.
On the same night RB Leipzig won 3-1 in Norway, leaving Rosenborg adrift, pointless and a little out of their depth in this high quality Europa League group. Next up for the Norwegians is back to back fixtures against the Austrian Red Bull side and you can’t see that going well for them.
A couple of Salzburg wins will put them out of sight in the group, leaving Celtic to try to get the better of the second best team in Germany at the moment. Celtic have never won in Germany in a competitive match and will try to put that right next Thursday and maybe the way Salzburg approached their game against Leipzig is the way to go. They attacked the Germans and exploited their defensive weaknesses, even if they lost a few rather soft goals themselves. Celtic will be an attractive price to shock Leipzig and checking the odds on Amazing.bet, it its going to take some performance for us to get any sort of result over there.
Salzburg’s goals against Celtic weren’t particularly pleasing on the eye but the ugly ones count just the same. They battered Celtic with their attacking intent and will take the same approach when they travel to Glasgow – that should be some game on 13 December.
But before that it’s all about the considerable challenge that RB Leipzig a week on Thursday. It Is going to be a tough shift.
