Scottish football faced heartbreak once more last night as Celtic's 1-0 home defeat by Dinamo Moscow left them on the brink of elimination, after a heroic run which has taken them to within ten months of the Final.
In the tradition of Scottish Premier League runners-up - who in the last ten years have included Celtic, Rangers, Rangers, Rangers, Celtic, Celtic, Rangers, Celtic, Rangers and Celtic - the Bhoys suffered bitter disappointment when the draw pitted them against a team from a league with some sort of competitive aspect. Nonetheless, hopes were high that under new manager Tony Mowbray, the Hoops might mount a serious challenge in Europe this season. Chairman John Reid told the press that 'this defeat is a serious blow to our hopes of scraping into the group stages, losing to Milan and PSV, drawing with some Danish team, and being essentially out by Christmas.'
Reid harshly criticised his fellow SPL chairmen last week over their deal with collapsed broadcaster Setanta, one of the only broadcasters who could be bothered to show the endless series of ugly or one-sided games which make up Scotland's domestic league. But after another in the interminable series of defeats for the Auld Firm at the wrong end of the European season, Reid admitted: 'Perhaps I should spend less time in-fighting, more time assessing why exactly Scottish football is such a pile of crap that it almost single-handedly killed off Setanta.'
'But there you go,' added Reid. 'I'm an ex-politician so I haven't got a fucking clue about most things, to be fair.'
Mowbray was still optimistic that the Bhoys would progress to the knockout, or 'actual', stages of the competition. 'All we've got to do is win in Moscow,' he said. 'I don't see what's stopping us, other than the fact that Russian teams are famously hard to beat at home and Scottish teams are useless away from home. ' He added that the club's Champions League run had 'already been creditable', since it will be 'well into August' before they are officially eliminated. This compares favourably to the 2004 Champions League bid of Rangers, who were knocked out as soon as they qualified for the competition, UEFA emailing them to say 'realistically, you're best off out of this.'
One Scottish football expert described this as 'our darkest day in Europe since Motherwell lost to Llanelli back in the middle of July'.
What nonsense.
ReplyDeleteA poor result last night but Celtics recent European results have been great considering they are not finanically doped like the EPL clubs.
In the past few years we have beat then holders of the CL AC Milan and Man United and drew with Man United last season, and we were disapointed with that result.
You talk about football like I would expect a 'comedian' to.
Utter nonsense.
Good to see Celtic fans famed sense of humour stretches to well-written blogs. As ever very funny Mark and ignore the above poster who doesn't seem to understand that this is a joke.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Estadio Nacional on one thing: you talk about football like I would expect a 'comedian' to - absolutely hilariously! Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteRight I was crabit earlier today for some reason.
ReplyDeleteI get the jokes and read this out of context with the other bogs that Ive now had read of, but I was just saying that Celtic have done well recently.
At least Scottish football pride was restored tonight...