Learnings from Celtic’s new format Champions League hangover

The Celtic Star

·25 maggio 2025

Learnings from Celtic’s new format Champions League hangover

It’s been a successful enough season with the Scottish Premiership and the League Cup both won, but it’s clear that Celtic needs to adapt to the new realities created by the new format for the Champions League…

Celtic players pose for a photo on pitch prior to the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 League Knockout Play-off second leg match between FC Bayern München and Celtic FC at Allianz Arena on February 18, 2025 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

As we salvage through the wreck of our Scottish Cup final defeat one thing was evidently clear and that is that we need to invest heavily in our squad if we want to further improve next season. It’s still been a successful enough campaign winning two trophies and as the song says two out of three ain’t bad. We won the League Cup and then the league just as we did back in 1997/98 season and the response to that was very different that the end of this current campaign.

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Henrik Larsson and Wim Jansen celebrate winning the league and stopping their ten. Photo Imago (The Celtic Star)

That’s because since that time Celtic has continually raised the bar. What been different this season is the participation in the new format Champions League which we made through to the play-offs before losing the two-leg tie narrowly in Munich.

Nicolas Kuhn scores during the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 League Knockout Play-off second leg match between FC Bayern München and Celtic FC at Allianz Arena on February 18, 2025 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

The Celtic players were highly motivated to do well in the Champions League and since the draw against Bayern Munich there has been an inevitable drop off in performance levels across the team which was probably masked by Daizen’s amazing purple patch, where he played the best football of his career and could do no wrong.

Daizen Maeda of Celtic is seen during the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup Quarter-Final match between Celtic and Hibernian at Celtic Park on March 09, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

That was more than enough to get us over the line. It’s no coincidence that in our post split fixtures the best performance came up at Pittodrie when our squad players put on a show and hammered Aberdeen 5-1. It’s hard to switch things on and for many of our mainstays – like Nicolas Kuhn and Arne Engels – they were running on empty. Or maybe the fatigue was mental and that has to be a consideration as we look at European football going forward.

14th May 2025; Pittodrie Scottish Premiership Aberdeen versus Celtic; Maik Nawrocki of Celtic and Pape Habib Gueye of Aberdeen challenge for the ball. Photo Vagelis Georgariou

Brendan wants to prioritise that so the two team approach – like we saw in the two recent games against Aberdeen – should be used in the league matches around the Champions League games so we are effectively playing a team for Europe and a team to win the league over those gruelling months when we had a midweek game every week.

It’s the first time that we’ve gone through that and I am sure other clubs will be looking at this.

Sean McArdle. Aberdeen 1-5 Celtic. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

Brendan last week was talking about Daizen and Reo both playing over 50 games each. You can add so many more into that category. Let’s say that the target was set at 40 maximum as the ideal number, then we stand a better chance of avoiding a similar drop off that also allowed theRangers to take three points at Celtic Park with us failing to beat them this year.

There are many players in the current squad who have shown that they can do a reliable job, Sinisalo, Ralston, Nawrocki, McCowan, Yang, Kenny and there are loan players returning this summer including Palma, Welsh, Lagerbielke and Tilio. Not all will fit the category but some will as will Academy players like Sean McArdle.

Kasper Schmeichel of Celtic concedes an own goal leading to the first goal for Aberdeen during the Scottish Cup Final match between Aberdeen and Celtic at Hampden Park on May 24, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

A friend on mine send me a message today, regarding the overreaction to yesterday’s defeat at Hampden. He said:

‘Yesterday was a dreadful disappointment and a huge anticlimax. But “them’s the breaks.” All the current Celtic bloggers keep talking about the dreadful 90s, when we struggled. That was nothing compared with the 50s when we went from 1954 to 1965 without a league win. We were hardly ever even in the top 5! (look it up . . .).

‘This means that I continue to celebrate current times. And so to ‘the breaks’ yesterday. Engels hit the post, Schlupp hit the bar, Taylor had a cert deflected off a heid, Daizen missed a chance for the first time in ages. Kasper made his only big error of the season.

‘Let’s celebrate the current unprecedented seam of success, and tell your regulars to cool doon.’

Photo: Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

Wise words indeed. We can’t stand still and must look forward and that means improving our squad. And that would have been the case had we won yesterday. If Brendan is bringing in for instance a top midfielder who plays in Europe then Paul Bernardo as an example would find himself starting in the two league matches around the European match, hopefully the Champions League.

Some players may want a move this summer and will need to be replaced. That’s the business model and that’s not changing. But we do need to factor in the impact the the new format Champions League has had and will continue to have on our players.

Brendan needs to change from his favoured starting eleven to playing the eleven that he thinks will win the game and yesterday that would have seen James Forrest start. When a player is flying you play him.

Jock Stein, manager Jock Stein of successful Scottish club Celtic. Once again the Glasgow side has taken the Scottish league Division One championships. 3 May 1968. Imago Photo Top Foto (The Celtic Star)

At my own first cup final at Hampden the Celtic team named by Jock Stein was Williams, Hay, Gemmell, Murdoch, Connelly, Brogan, Johnstone, Dalglish, Hood, Callaghan, Macari.

Anyone remember how that went?

Celtic’s respectable showing in the Champions League will open the door to more quality players than would have otherwise been the case, wanting to come to Celtic. That’s an opportunity ant needs to be matched by our own ambition. Disappointing as yesterday was, we’ll all get over it.

And congratulations to Aberdeen who found a way, sometimes that’s all you can do.

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