All about the next game: Celtic away in the Europa League

Flood­lights, Cel­tic Park, and all of it on a rai­ny Thurs­day evening in Febru­ary. What could scream Euro­pa League knock­out match more than that?

For VfB, who in their recent histo­ry have only known two-leg­ged ties from rele­ga­ti­on play­offs, this is a return to whe­re they belong. In the 2000s, they were regu­lar par­ti­ci­pan­ts in the UEFA Cup and later the Euro­pa League, repea­ted­ly rea­ching the knock­out rounds and even the Round of 16—where their jour­ney usual­ly ended. The last time VfB mana­ged this was in the 2012/13 sea­son, when they lost and were eli­mi­na­ted in a behind-clo­sed-doors match against Lazio at the Sta­dio Olim­pi­co. Who could have gues­sed what the next twel­ve to thir­teen years would bring? Now, somehow, they’re back—stronger and more con­fi­dent than ever. The road back to the knock­out rounds beg­ins in Glas­gow, whe­re Cel­tic await the Swa­bi­ans.

The his­to­ric Cel­tic Park—a year older than Ver­ein für Bewegungsspiele—likely appears on many foot­ball fans’ bucket lists. Few sta­di­ums embo­dy Scot­tish foot­ball quite like this one. In the north of the Bri­tish Isles, foot­ball is more than just a pas­ti­me. For Cel­tic sup­port­ers, it is a place of resis­tance and of Scot­tish-Catho­lic iden­ti­ty. The club was foun­ded by Irish immi­grants to rai­se funds for Glasgow’s poor dis­tricts. Cel­tic FC quick­ly beca­me a domi­nant force in Scot­land, com­pe­ting with Ran­gers FC for supre­ma­cy in Scot­tish foot­ball. Ran­gers repre­sent the stark opposite—loyalist and Protestant—making matches bet­ween the two clubs not just sport­ing con­tests but poli­ti­cal clas­hes as well.

Cel­tic are among the most suc­cessful teams in the world. Dome­sti­cal­ly, they domi­na­te the league, but inter­na­tio­nal­ly they are more of a small fish. “The Bhoys” regu­lar­ly com­pe­te in the Cham­pi­ons League or Euro­pa League, yet they have won the Euro­pean Cup only once—in 1967.

Cel­tic are curr­ent­ly expe­ri­en­cing a cer­tain degree of unrest. They sit third in the Scot­tish Pre­mier­ship, behind Ran­gers and the sur­pri­se league lea­ders Heart of Mid­lothi­an FC. Their pro­gres­si­on in the Euro­pa League was any­thing but con­vin­cing. Only thanks to a 4–2 win over alre­a­dy-eli­mi­na­ted FC Utrecht did they qua­li­fy for the play­offs. Accor­din­gly, the odds and ana­ly­tics sites see VfB as favo­ri­tes. OPTA esti­ma­tes VfB’s chan­ces of win­ning at 50.7%—despite the fact that we’re play­ing away.

Squad situation

Apart from the deve­lo­p­ment play­ers Jova­no­vic and Jus­tin Diehl, all regis­tered VfB play­ers are fit.

Possible starting lineup

At the moment, this would likely be our stron­gest ele­ven. Alter­na­tively, Assi­gnon could replace Vagno­man and/or El Khan­nouss could come in for Undav.

Statistics

Stutt­gart have now play­ed ten matches against Scot­tish teams—twelve if you include the infa­mous Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and the two matches against Dun­ferm­li­ne Ath­le­tic FC. The Swa­bi­ans recor­ded five wins, two draws, and four defeats. We have also faced Cel­tic befo­re. Almost exact­ly 13 years ago, the teams met in the Round of 16. After a 3–2 home win and a 1–3 away defeat, VfB were eli­mi­na­ted. Cel­tic, mean­while, rea­ched the final but lost in stop­pa­ge time to FC Por­to.

Conclusion

Two matches against an ico­nic oppo­nent await us—one that is not lack­ing in sport­ing qua­li­ty. It will be a tough away game for our boys, but I remain opti­mi­stic and belie­ve we will lea­ve Cel­tic Park with a vic­to­ry.

Title image: © San­dra Behne/Bongarts/Getty Images