Dead Rubbers No More

The league phase of the Champions League comes to an end tonight, and whilst Celtic’s 1-0 victory over Young Boys last week ensured they will indeed be taking their place in the knockout stages, there is still a lot to decide before we get there.

The league going into the final round of games makes for fascinating reading. Whilst the team currently in 25th place can’t catch Celtic, hence their guarantee of being in the knockout phase, you can bet the club in that position – and who would have bet on it being Manchester City when this league phase was proposed – will be bursting a gut to get the win over Club Brugge that they need to join Celtic there.

Celtic can still, mathematically at least, finish in the top eight. The fact that Bayer Leverkusen who are currently eighth are only one point ahead of Celtic right now just shows how tight things are in this league phase. It’s one of the more exciting aspects of this new setup.

But for Celtic to do that, they’d not only have to beat ninth placed Aston Villa to go above them, but hope for a whole other sequence of results as well. Leverkusen would have to drop points to the already eliminated Sparta Prague. Monaco would have to drop points to the all but guaranteed top eight spot Inter Milan. Feyenoord and Lille would have to draw against each other, as would Brest and Real Madrid. Dortmund would have to drop points to Shakhtar Donetsk who only have an outside chance of making the knockout stages cut and have to win and hope for the best. Bayern Munich would have to drop points at home to Slovan Bratislava, who are one of only two teams that don’t have a single point from this league phase so far. Finally, Juventus would have to drop points to Benfica, who admittedly need the win to be sure of reaching the knockout phase.

If all of that happened, and yes draws are enough for dropping points such is the tightness of the league phase, then yes Celtic would finish eighth. If all but one of those happens, and Atalanta also lose to Barcelona, then again Celtic would finish eighth. And if you want to get really ambitious, Celtic could finish as high as fifth, but to do that it would mean all of the previous results as well as AC Milan losing away to Dinamo Zagreb, and Atletico Madrid losing away to Salzburg.

Okay, that’s the mathematics out of the way. Realistically, that long series of results is not going to happen and Celtic are going to finish somewhere in the ninth to twenty fourth positions that means a knockout round prior to the last sixteen. But even then it’s still important where Celtic finish in the league phase because that will decide which one of two opponents Celtic will face there.

It gets a bit complicated here, because the teams are paired so we do still get a draw of sorts – even if it is pretty much a toss of a coin. For example, the teams in 9th and 10th will face the teams in 23rd and 24th. That doesn’t mean they face both, it means the team that finishes 9th will face either the team that finishes in 23rd or the team that finishes in 24th. The team that finishes in 10th will get the team that the team that finishes in 9th doesn’t get. That then continues for 11th and 12th against 21st and 22nd, 13th and 14th against 19th and 20th, and 15th and 16th against 17th and 18th.

With Celtic currently in eighteenth spot, that last combination is the one that would see Celtic face either Bayern Munich or Real Madrid if the league phase finished right now. Juventus would face the other one. Being in the middle of the league phase doesn’t strike me as the best position!

So actually, here’s the weird bit. If Celtic win tonight and catapult themselves up the table but not quite into the top eight, they might think they’ve done themselves a favour. Then the draw might pair them with Manchester City or Paris Saint-Germain! Equally, Celtic might lost tonight, slip down the table a bit, only to find they now face a draw against the likes of Feyenoord or Brest.

Told you this league phase was fun. And it does mean that despite what some people suggest, the game tonight is far from a dead rubber.

So, what of tonight’s game? Well, it’s live on TNT Sports 1, with an 8pm kick off like all of the eighteen matches tonight. Yep, no picking your spot in the table, all the games kick off on the same night at the same time. If you’re not watching a live game, this may well be a night for the goals show!

Aston Villa go into this match having beaten Young Boys 3-0 away on the opening night courtesy of goals from Youri Tielemans, Jacob Ramsey, and Amadou Onana. They also had two other goals ruled out by VAR, which seems to be a common theme for Young Boys games!

Aston Villa then beat Bayern Munich 1-0 at Villa Park on match day two, Jhon Duran getting the goal that proved to be the difference.

That result mirrored Villa’s finest moment when they lifted the European Cup in Rotterdam in 1982. And it’s worth noting that this season is Villa’s first in Europe’s premier competition since they tried to defend their title in the 1982/83 season where they lost out to Juventus in the quarter finals.

Match day three saw Villa maintain their 100% record as they beat Bologna 2-0 at home. Scotland’s own John McGinn with the opener, with Jhon Duran getting the second.

The 100% record disappeared on match day four when Villa lost 1-0 away to Club Brugge. The goal game from the spot after what can only be described as a bit of a brain fart by Tyrone Mings.

Match day five was a goalless draw at home to Juventus.

Whilst match day six saw them get back to winning ways with a 3-2 win away to RB Leipzig. John McGinn opened the scoring, but Ikoma Lois Openda levelled the game in the first half. Jhon Duran restored the lead in the second half only for Christoph Baumgartner to level once more. Ross Barkley got the late winner for Villa.

Last week, Villa lost 1-0 away to Monaco.

As you may remember, Aston Villa hadn’t played Scottish opposition prior to last season when Hibernian faced them in the Conference League playoff round. The game at Villa Park finished 3-0, adding to the 5-0 from the first leg. Villa eventually made it through to the semi finals of the tournament, but lost out to eventual tournament winners Olymipakos there 6-2 on aggregate.

Celtic, on the other hand, have been to England many times.

There was the 2-0 defeat to Liverpool in the semi final of the 1965/66 Cup Winners’ Cup. Funny how the footage never shows the dodgy offside given against Celtic that would have taken them through.

Next came the 1-0 win away to Leeds United courtesy go an early George Connelly goal in the European Cup semi final of 1969/70.

The came a goalless draw away to Nottingham Forest in the 1983/84 UEFA Cup third round. I’m going to put the second leg from Celtic Park here because I can only find a 30 minute long version of the game in Nottingham and this one at least has goals, even if Celtic did lose 2-1.

After that there was another goalless draw away to Liverpool in the 1997/98 UEFA Cup first round. Unfortunately for Celtic, the first leg had finished 2-2 so they lost out on away goals.

Next there’s two games from the run to the UEFA Cup final in Seville in 2003. First up in the second round was a 2-0 win away to Blackburn Rovers courtesy of Henrik Larsson and Chris Sutton.

Then in the quarter final, the same scoreline came courtesy of Alan Thompson and John Hartson against Liverpool.

The 2006/07 Champions League group stage saw Celtic lose 3-2 away to Manchester United. Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink gave Celtic the lead, but United levelled from the penalty spot through Luis Saha thanks to Ryan Giggs’ hamstring giving way next to Artur Boruc. Never a penalty. United were 2-1 up, the second also from Saha, before Shunsuke Nakamura scored a free kick to level the game before half time. This one was good, but the one he scored at Celtic Park was even better. But, of course, United scored a third through Ole Gunnar Solskjaer early in the second half to ultimately win the game.

The 2008/09 Champions League group stage saw another trip to Manchester United, and another defeat, this time 3-0. Two goal from Dimitar Berbatov and one from Wayne Rooney. Fairly sure I couldn’t find footage of this one last week either!

The Champions League playoff round in 2009/10 saw Celtic lose 3-1 away to Arsenal. Another dodgy penalty conned by Eduardo that he also scored in the first half put Arsenal 3-0 up on aggregate. Further goals from Emmanuel Eboue and Andrey Arshavin put Arsenal well out of sight, with only a Massimo Donati consolation for the travelling fans to cheer in what ended up being his last touch for Celtic. Again, difficult to get footage of this one from UEFA.

The most recent trip to England came in the 2016/17 Champions League group stage, where Celtic got a 1-1 draw away at Manchester City. Celtic actually had the lead through Patrick Roberts who was on loan from City at the time, but Kelechi Iheanacho levelled the game to share the spoils.

So in eleven previous visits to England, Celtic have won three, drawn another three, and lost only four. That’s not a bad record all in.

Of course, if Celtic are to get anything tonight then they’ll need to do it without both the suspended Daizen Maeda and the now departed for Rennes, Kyogo Furuhashi. The returning Jota isn’t eligible to play until the knockout phase. So it’s definitely a difficult ask for Celtic, but that’s this weird overlap with the transfer window for you!

Aston Villa are currently eighth in the English Premier League, sixteen points behind leaders Liverpool having played a game more, but only four points outside the Champions League places. On Sunday they drew 1-1 at home with West Ham. They go to Wolverhampton Wanderers this coming Saturday.

Celtic had the weekend off as storm Éowyn damaged Celtic Park to the point that their game against Dundee had to be postponed on Saturday. They are top of the Scottish Premiership, ten points clear of second place Rangers with a game in hand. They go to Motherwell this coming Sunday.

Good luck to Celtic tonight!