All about the next opponent: Interview with Celtic fan Christopher

Tonight brings ano­ther Euro­pean high­light for VfB: the away match at Cel­tic Park in Glas­gow. Chris­to­pher from the blog and pod­cast The Cynic tells us how things are curr­ent­ly going for the Scot­tish cham­pi­ons.

With the Red Stri­pe: Hel­lo Chris­to­pher and thank you for taking time for our ques­ti­ons. With sunday’s late win at Kil­mar­nock and Ran­gers’ win against hearts, Cel­tic are just three points behind the top spot with one game in hand. What is stop­ping you from win­ning the fifth Pre­mier­ship title in a row?

Chris­to­pher: At this moment, the Scot­tish Pre­mier­ship title race is wide open and it’s real­ly anyone’s to win. Cel­tic are on a good run of vic­to­ries dome­sti­cal­ly, but the per­for­man­ces haven’t matched. The­re is a long way to go with the split on the hori­zon, and it feels like Cel­tic, Ran­gers and Hearts will all drop points. To ans­wer your ques­ti­on, the only thing stop­ping Cel­tic win­ning our fifth Pre­mier­ship in a row…….is Cel­tic.

This sea­son did­n’t go as plan­ned for a long time, though. Mar­tin O’N­eill is the third per­ma­nent mana­ger this sea­son after Brendan Rogers was sacked in Okto­ber and Wil­fried Nan­cy las­ted only a month. What were the reasons for that?

Most of the bla­me lays squa­re­ly at the door of the men in the Cel­tic board­room. They have fal­len asleep at the wheel and have gui­ded Cel­tic into dis­as­ter. The club is run very poor­ly, which is evi­dent from how poor­ly we do busi­ness in the trans­fer mar­ket. When Brendan Rod­gers left, the board bla­med him for all of Celtic’s pro­blems. They then appoin­ted Wil­fried Nan­cy and put him in char­ge at the worst pos­si­ble time, which led to poor results and uphe­aval at the club. They then sacked him and took no accoun­ta­bi­li­ty for it. Ulti­m­ate­ly, it’s all down to a lack of plan­ning, struc­tu­re, sup­port and visi­on from the peo­p­le in char­ge of the foot­ball club.

O’N­eill has led the club back towards the top of the league — what is he doing bet­ter than his pre­de­ces­sors and may­be bet­ter than in his time as an inte­rim mana­ger from Octo­ber until Decem­ber?

When Mar­tin O’Neill was appoin­ted in Octo­ber, no one knew how long he would be in the manager’s seat. It was a week to week, game to game appoint­ment until the new mana­ger was appoin­ted. In that regard, Mar­tin O’Neill and his manage­ment team were loo­king at the next game as poten­ti­al­ly their last. When O’Neill was appoin­ted the second time round, we had con­fir­ma­ti­on that he was the­re for the rest of the sea­son. He’s a fan­ta­stic man man­ger and has sim­pli­fied the game on the pitch. Cel­tic are more direct and want to get the ball in the oppo­si­ti­on box as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. He rever­ted to a for­ma­ti­on the squad is com­for­ta­ble with and the focus is more sub­s­tance over style.

Inci­den­tal­ly, O’N­eill was also in char­ge when Cel­tic and Stutt­gart met for the first and only time in a Euro­pean com­pe­ti­ti­on: In the 2002-03 UEFA cup, Cel­tic advan­ced to the quar­ter finals after win­ning 3–1 at Park­head and losing 2–3 in Stutt­gart. Cel­tic went on the its first Euro­pean cup final sin­ce 1970 whe­re they lost to Por­to. What is O’Neill’s stan­ding at Cel­tic that they would bring him back as a mana­ger after almost twen­ty years?

Mar­tin O’Neill is a Cel­tic legend. He res­to­red Celtic’s sta­tu­re in Euro­pean com­pe­ti­ti­on and laid the foun­da­ti­on for suc­cess long after he had gone. He rai­sed the stan­dard and expec­ta­ti­ons at the club and lead us to a Euro­pean final. He had us com­pe­ting with eli­te teams on a regu­lar basis and crea­ted a dome­stic behe­mo­th, that brought incre­di­ble suc­cess in Scot­land. He is only second to Jock Stein on the list of Celtic’s grea­test ever mana­gers.

As I said, the 2003 UEFA Cup final was the first Euro­pean final sin­ce losing to Feye­noord in 1970 and only the third in the clubs’s histo­ry inclu­ding the legen­da­ry Lis­bon Lions of 1967. How important is that sea­son — and may­be the games against VfB — for the coll­ec­ti­ve memo­ry of fans?

The 2002/03 sea­son is one in which Cel­tic won not­hing but it’s still one of the best sea­sons I’ve ever had sup­port­ing Cel­tic. To get to a Euro­pean Final and for it to go to extra time, after twice coming from behind, against the team that would win the Cham­pi­ons League the next sea­son, shows just how good that Cel­tic side were. The tie against Stutt­gart was one of the best in the run to the final. Cel­tic would play both games wit­hout our grea­test ever con­tem­po­ra­ry stri­ker, Hen­rik Lars­son, and would still score 5 goals against a fan­ta­stic Stutt­gart side. Kevin Kuranyi scored a superb goal at Cel­tic Park and the late ral­ly in Stutt­gart made it ner­vous towards the end but it’s one of the best away nights I can remem­ber.

I read some­whe­re that Cel­tic has­n’t pro­gres­sed past play­off rounds or the first round after the group stage for years so I loo­ked it up and inde­ed: It was in 03–04, when you rea­ched the UEFA cup quar­ter finals. Why is that and how important is suc­cess in Euro­pean com­pe­ti­ti­on for Cel­tic fans, espe­ci­al­ly in light of the domi­nan­ce in dome­stic com­pe­ti­ti­ons?

It comes down to the ambi­ti­on of the Cel­tic board. The club is run in such a way that the men in char­ge are hap­py with dome­stic suc­cess and do not see the need to try and push the club for­ward on a Euro­pean level. This has seen Cel­tic Park go from a caul­dron of inti­mi­da­ti­on and fear for the oppo­si­ti­on to a venue that oppo­si­ti­on clubs seem to thri­ve in. Last sea­son we per­for­med well in the Cham­pi­ons League for the first time in seve­ral years but this sea­son we couldn’t defeat a poor Kai­rat team in the qua­li­fiers, which ais all due to the board mem­bers not spen­ding money to streng­then the team. It’s a real shame that the­re is a gene­ra­ti­on of Cel­tic fans that have never seen the club per­form well in a knock­out tie in Euro­pean com­pe­ti­ti­on.

On more trip down memo­ry lane: One play­er that play­ed for both clubs is Andre­as Hin­kel, part of the first gene­ra­ti­on of “Jun­ge Wil­de” (Young wild ones) that beat famously beat Man­ches­ter United in 2003. How is he remem­be­red at Park­head?

Andy Hin­kel is remem­be­red very fondly at Cel­tic Park and is someone that per­for­med well in his time here. He was ham­pe­red by inju­ries but over­all, he is someone that fans took to very well.

Back to the pre­sent: What for­ma­ti­on is O’N­eill play­ing and whe­re do you see the team’s strengths and weak­ne­s­ses at the moment?

Cel­tic under Mar­tin O’Neill play in a 4–3‑3 for­ma­ti­on. We play a very direct style, with a lot of our play down the wide are­as. We cross the ball into the box as often as we can, and we tend to rely on our wide play­ers to crea­te oppor­tu­ni­ties. Our main weak­ne­ss is defen­si­ve­ly, we strugg­le with set pie­ces and 1 v 1s, we can be caught in tran­si­ti­on which is an ongo­ing con­cern.

Cel­tic signed Juni­or Ada­mu from Frei­burg and Tomás Cvan­ca­ra from Glad­bach as well as Alex Oxla­de-Cham­ber­lain in the win­ter alt­hough the lat­ter is not eli­gi­ble to play against us. Apart from the new arri­vals, who should we look out for during the­se two games?

Celtic’s form this sea­son has been patchy at best but the­re are play­ers within the side that have shown over the years that they can per­form at this level. The Cap­tain, Callum McGre­gor, is a dri­ving force in a mid­field that has strug­g­led recent­ly. Kier­an Tier­ney has shown flas­hes of his for­mer level recent­ly and can be an asset in build-up play, as can Arau­jo at right back who has been excel­lent sin­ce he came in in Janu­ary. Maeda is one of the fas­test play­ers you will see and works very hard off the ball and Nygren may­be doesn’t to a lot on or off the ball in games, but he scores a lot of goals.

Who will be miss­ing from the squad on Thurs­day and may­be even for the return leg?

Arne Engels is the only play­er that has been play­ing recent­ly that will be unavailable. He is inju­red and won’t be back till late March. Ihen­a­cho has play­ed in the Euro­pa League but has fea­tured very litt­le under Mar­tin O’Neill, so it’s a coin toss to see if he makes the bench.

What did Cel­tic fans think of play­ing against Stutt­gart in the play­offs?

A very dif­fi­cult draw against a very good foot­bal­ling side. It feels more like a Cham­pi­ons League tie than Euro­pa League. If Cel­tic were in bet­ter shape, we would relish test­ing our­sel­ves against a side like Stutt­gart but with how the club are at the moment, there’s a slight con­cern the tie could get away from us.

For tho­se of us who weren’t in Glas­gow almost exact­ly 23 years ago and have never been to Para­di­se: What awaits us in your sta­di­um?

Unfort­u­na­te­ly, the club has ban­ned our main ultras sec­tion, the Green Bri­ga­de from the sta­di­um. Ano­ther baff­ling decis­i­on by the board in a sea­son of baff­ling decis­i­ons. Also, a lot of the sup­port­ers are boy­cot­ting the Euro­pa League games as a pro­test for how the club is being run and the lack of invest­ment, so the Stutt­gart fans are unli­kely to see vin­ta­ge Cel­tic Park.

Even though it’s still Febru­ary, many Stutt­gart Fans will use the trip to visit the city as well. Do you have any insi­der tips what to see and do in Glas­gow?

Glas­gow is a crack­ing city for food and drin­king, as well as cul­tu­re. The­res too many places to men­ti­on but if they want a few pints befo­re the game the­re are ple­nty of pubs on the way to Cel­tic Park.

Final­ly: Your pre­dic­tion for start­ing ele­ven and the two games?

Pre­dic­ting a Cel­tic side for each game is a dif­fi­cult one due to how often the mana­ger chan­ges cer­tain posi­ti­ons but if I had to pre­dict I’d say:

Schmei­chel

Arau­jo
Sca­les
Trus­ty
Tier­ney

McGre­gor
Nygren
Hat­a­te

Maeda
Čvanča­ra
Tounek­ti

I reck­on Cel­tic will nick it by a goal in Glas­gow and draw in Stutt­gart.

Pic­tu­re: © Stu Forster/Getty Images