Scottish clubs in danger of Euro meltdown

Scottish club Celtic made history in 1967 when they became the first British team to win the European Cup but fast forward 44 years and today they could be party to a piece of unwanted footballinghistory.

For all three Scottish clubs – Rangers and Hearts being the other two – are in danger of exiting the Europa League at the play-off stage and leaving no Scottish representatives in the group stages of either European club competition for the first time.

Celtic – who reached the 2003 UEFA Cup final – are in danger as they could only draw 0-0 at home to FC Sion last week while champions Rangers, UEFA Cup finalists as recently as 2008, also risk going out of their second European competition in a month as they host unfancied Slovenian side NK Maribor.

They already lost 2-1 on aggregate to the Swedes of Malmo in the Champions League third qualifying round.

Hearts can realistically only hope to salvage some honour as they travel to English Premier League side Tottenham after a 5-0 pasting by the London club last Thursday.

Celtic did not get the boost they required before the trip to Switzerland when they surprisingly lost 1-0 at home to St Johnstone at the weekend, leaving manager Neil Lennon raging.

“We have to get over this one quickly,” said the fiery Northern Irishman.

More worryingly Lennon even questioned whether some of the players wanted to play for the club.

“I don’t know where some people’s heads are, whether they want to be here or not.”

However, forward Shaun Maloney insists a good performance in Sion will set them back on the right track.

“After dissecting the game we’ll have to start focusing on the Sion game,” he told Celtic View.

“And that match takes on even more importance, considering the weekend’s results and the first-leg result.

“It’s vitally important. We were obviously hoping we would be coming into the game after a very good performance at the weekend. And for 45 minutes we did.

“But now we’ll be going into the Sion game coming off a bad result. So we’ll see how we cope. It’s days like this that will prove how far the team’s come.”

Rangers at least got an away goal to give them reason to be optimistic although Scottish international striker Steven Naismith is ruled out through suspension.

However, he is confident that his team-mates can pull off a victory.

“It’s disappointing that I am suspended but I am sure that the boys who come in will have enough to get past Maribor and qualify,” he told reporters.

Celtic and Rangers are not the only big clubs in danger of being eliminated, although Roma should be able to turn things round when they host Slovakian outfit Slovan Bratislava 1-0 down from the first leg.

Schalke 04 face the humiliation of going from last season’s Champions League semi-finals to missing out on the group stages of Europe’s secondary competition as the German Cup holders host HJK Helsinki trailing 2-0.

Play-off round – 2nd legs

17.00: Spartak Moscow vs Legia Warsaw (first leg: 2-2); Dinamo Bucharest vs Vorskla Poltava (1-2).
18.30: Rennes vs Red Star (2-1).
18.45: PSV vs Ried (0-0).
19.00: Alania vs Besiktas (0-3); AEK Larnaca vs Rosenborg (0-0); Spartak Trnava vs Lok. Moscow (0-2); D. Kiev vs Litex Lovech (2-1); Gaz Metan vs Austria Vienna (1-3).
19.05: D. Tbilisi vs AEK Athens (0-1).
19.30: Hapoel Tel Aviv vs Ekranas (0-1); CSKA Sofia vs Steaua Bucharest (0-2); Young Boys vs Braga (0-0).
20.00: Rapid Bucharest vs S. Wroclaw (3-1); S. Prague vs Vaslui (0-2).
20.15: Panathinaikos vs Maccabi TA (0-3); Helsingborg vs Standard Liege (0-1); Schalke vs HJK Helsinki (0-2).
20.30: P. Belgrade vs Shamrock (1-1); Anderlecht vs Bursaspor (2-1); Guimaraes vs Atletico Madrid (0-2); Trabzonspor vs Ath. Bilbao (0-0); Rangers vs NK Maribor (1-2); Dnipro vs Fulham (0-3); Sion vs Celtic (0-0); Bruges vs Zestafoni (3-3).
20.45: Sochaux vs Metalist (0-0); Roma vs S. Bratislava (0-1); Rabotnicki vs Lazio (0-6); Birmingham vs Nacional (0-0); Stoke vs Thun (1-0); AZ Alkmaar vs Aalesund (1-2).
21.00: Salzburg vs Omonia (1-2); Sevilla vs Hannover (1-2); Karpaty vs PAOK (0-2); Tottenham vs Hearts (5-0); PSG vs Differdange (4-0).
21.15: Sporting Lisbon vs Nordsjaelland (0-0).

Group stage draw: Tomorrow.