Category: UEFA Competitions

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While it is not uncommon for Scottish Premiership sides to perform their own version of Brexit in August, something of a nadir seems to have been reached this time around. On Tuesday night, Celtic soiled the sheets against Lask in a spectacular act of self-sabotage, somehow contriving not to qualify for Bigger Cup’s league phase from a tie they led 4-0 on aggregate at one stage. While their humiliation was widely viewed as one for all of fitba, fans of Rangers won’t have shed any salty tears. However, their delight at the status of laughing stock visited upon their bitter rivals was hideously diminished when their own representatives from Ibrox travelled to Czechia, apparently under a banner that read “Haud our bevvies!”

Congratulations to the Reader Formerly Known as Phil Taverner on his letter o’ the day (Thursday’s letters). Not only did the name change bring him instant brand recognition, but, like ‘Sávio’ joining Spurs, it guarantees that any success from here on will be prizeless” – Justin Kavanagh.

Did Phil Taverner write both letters so he’d have a 100% chance of the prizeless win? If so, can I change my name to Phil Taverner?” – Julie Bebb.

May I be one of the 1,057 readers protesting against the display of not one, but two letters from Noble Francis yesterday. This is outrageous and flies in the face of established editorial standards! Also, in the spirit of Monty Python: I am Noble Francis, and so is my wife” – Rasteen Nowroozi.

Re: Thursday’s opening bombshell – ‘The transfer window isn’t an actual window.’ Mind blown! Thank you Football Daily for uncovering the truth” – Steve Mintz.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions. 

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• Celtic lose to Lask in qualifier from 4-0 up on aggregate

• ‘That’s my team and that’s my responsibility,’ O’Neill says

Martin O’Neill has admitted Celtic’s Champions League qualifying collapse from 4-0 up ranks as one of his most painful nights as the club’s manager.

Celtic held a four-goal aggregate lead against Lask on Tuesday when Callum McGregor scored in the 21st minute in Austria, building on a 3-0 first-leg victory, and appeared to be cruising into the league stage. But they lost 5-1 on the night after extra time to go out in extraordinary fashion.

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Celtic threw away a four-goal lead in Austria as they missed out on the Champions League for the second year running. The Scottish champions looked to be cruising into the league stage when Callum McGregor put them 4-0 up on aggregate against Lask with a 21st-minute deflected strike.

However, they went on to endure one of their all-time European lows with a 5-1 defeat in Linz delivering a £20m-plus blow.

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A stunning double from the summer signing Camilo Durán helped Celtic open up a commanding lead against Lask in their Champions League playoff. Benjamin Nygren also produced a superb finish to send Martin O’Neill’s side on their way to a 3-0 first-leg win over their Austrian opponents in Glasgow.

The visitors had two goals disallowed for offside and created chances throughout in an open encounter but Celtic were clinical as they continued their strong start to the season. Nygren has been at the heart of it with four goals and four assists in as many games and he opened the scoring in the 26th minute. The Swede readjusted his body to volley into the top corner from 20 yards after a weak clearance from Kieran Tierney’s cross.

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Larne defender Dan Bent has played in two European competitions this summer and now faces a former team in a Conference League tie that could earn his club vital funds

By Playing in the Shadows

Premier League footballers are gearing up for the start of the season, but some of their fellow professionals in smaller leagues across Europe have been going all summer – even those who play a winter campaign. Some played the biggest games of their lives when the rest of us were watching the World Cup. The Champions League qualifiers began when the World Cup was at the last-16 stage, with some clubs already knocked out of Europe by the time England were beaten by Argentina in Atlanta.

Larne, the champions of Northern Ireland, began their European crusade on the day Argentina beat Egypt in the World Cup last-16, Dan Bent’s penalty in the second leg a week later helping them overcome Tre Fiori of San Marino in the Champions League. Larne’s reward was a meeting with former European champions Red Star Belgrade. They were beaten 9-0 on aggregate by the Serbian giants, but it is an experience Bent will treasure for ever.

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The origin of PSG’s largesse and the effect it’s had on their domestic game can’t be ignored, even as we appreciate the team’s stunning quality

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Since 1990, only one side had ever successfully defended the Champions League – Real Madrid, who won three in a row between 2016 and 2018. Paris Saint-Germain’s victory in the final on Saturday elevates them to a new tier of the pantheon. No bad side has ever won the European Cup or Champions League, but only great sides have ever retained it.

Arsenal pushed them much closer than Inter had in losing in the final the previous year, and there is always something slightly unsatisfying about a victory on penalties, but the quality of this PSG cannot be denied. They put six past Bayern in the semi-final – their superiority far greater than the one-goal aggregate margin would suggest. It was a similar story in the quarter-final, in which a 4-0 aggregate victory didn’t really reflect how much better they were than Liverpool. And while Chelsea may think they were slightly unlucky to lose the first leg of their last-16 tie away to PSG 5-2, the 3-0 result in the second leg was a devastating assertion of authority: three goals scored by an almost bored opponent apparently just as they felt like it.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

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In recent weeks, there has been endless discourse on why so many people hate Arsenal. Yet, yesterday’s parade in the cultural melting pot of north London proved that plenty of people out there really, really, really love them. Due in no small part to the fact that he couldn’t head his penalty and none of his teammates were blocking the PSG goalkeeper, Gabriel Magalhães’ miss from the spot meant the Gunners came up agonisingly short in their latest bid to win Bigger Cup. That didn’t stop the thick end of a million Arsenal fans of every age, stripe and shade from making the pilgrimage to Islington to worship their vanquished heroes. With the Premier League trophy already in the bag, the general mood ratio of unbridled joy to crushing disappointment was about 75-25, a statistic many will recognise as being almost identical to the previous evening’s possession stats in the Puskas Arena.

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To better highlight the whole field among Europe’s elite, we chose an XI that couldn’t feature more than one player from any one team

This year we are picking a team of the season with a difference: I am allowed only one player per team. Of course, as finalists Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal have players with claims to all of these positions, so apologies to Willian Pacho and Declan Rice, among others. But what this format does allow for is an overall view of the Champions League season that was.

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Thirst for renewal is strong and new players could help bridge the gap to PSG but there are no guarantees

The greatest lie ever told about penalty shootouts is that they are a lottery. This is a recognisable and trainable footballing skill, a test not just of ball-striking and placement but research, psychology, mettle under pressure. Eberechi Eze puts the ball wide, Gabriel Magalhães sends it in the direction of the Danube: this is failure on the most brutal and unforgiving terms. But it is failure nonetheless.

The second greatest lie ever told about penalties is that fortune plays no part. Any encounter decided by 10 kicks of a football will evidently be at the disproportionate mercy of random factors: the divot, the bad contact, the goalkeeper’s guesswork (and to all the preparation that goes into the process, it remains partly guesswork). That this sport – already a sport of low scores, narrow differentials and infinite variables – chooses to decide its biggest prizes on these smallest of morsels is one of its cruellest traits.

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The best images from Budapest and beyond as, after reaching their first Champions League final in 20 years, Arsenal lost out on penalties to the defending champions Paris Saint-Germain

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Eberechi Eze and Gabriel missed from the spot to give PSG victory in a gruelling final

“They’ve got a wonderful group of players and a great manager in Mikel Arteta but having come so close three times on the bounce I felt these guys needed it,” Sol Campbell says of Arsenal winning the Premier League for the first time in 22 years since, in 2004, he was the cornerstone of their defence for the Invincibles. His team remained unbeaten throughout that historic league season, but the pressure on his successors has been immense.

“The wait has been so heavy and it was all pent up, building year after year, always coming so close but never getting over the line,” he says. “That’s why you saw such an outpouring of joy and togetherness. It’s been incredible because we’ve been waiting such a long time.”

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Arsenal relied on their brilliant defence to see off PSG in the semi-finals and frustrate Parma in the final in 1994

By That 1980s Sports Blog

The Cup Winners’ Cup would become a victim of the Champions League’s expansion in the late 1990s, but there could be no questioning the quality of the competition when Arsenal won it in the 1993-94 season. Real Madrid, Ajax, Parma, Torino, Bayer Leverkusen, Benfica and Paris Saint-Germain stood in Arsenal’s way as they tried to win their first European trophy since the Fairs Cup in 1970.

The first round was far from encouraging. Arsenal limped past Danish club Odense 3-2 on aggregate. But the 10-0 demolition of Standard Liège – including a 7-0 win in Belgium – took George Graham’s side into a testing quarter-final against Torino.

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As a boy in the apartheid era I saw footage of the Gunners beaten in the 1969 League Cup final – on Saturday I will attend the Champions League showpiece with my son

I fell for Arsenal in the white‑and-black world of apartheid, where television was banned as a tool of communist propaganda and the club of my dreams was 6,000 miles away and mostly invisible to me. So it feels fitting that a surreal love story that began for a small boy in South Africa in 1969 will reach a new peak on Saturday night in eastern Europe. This 65-year-old Arsenal fan and his 25-year-old son, who is just as besotted by the Gunners, will be at the Champions League final in Budapest as we face the dazzling powerhouse of Paris Saint-Germain.

It’s the final game of Arsenal’s tumultuous grind of a season and we are as exhausted as we are still euphoric. We will remember that my last game of this campaign could have been Swindon’s 2-1 home defeat by Chesterfield in League Two. I have had my share of pain with Arsenal; but it would have been a far deeper burden to have spent 57 years supporting Swindon.

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