Can a Scottish team ever win the Champions League?
Will these glory days for the Scots ever return?
Celtic’s home draw with Manchester United last night dumps them, all but mathematically, out of the Champions League for another year. They opened with, by Champions League standards, an easy home tie against Aalborg BK, but a disappointing 0-0 draw was all they managed to achieve in the game that held their best chance of success out of their six fixtures. Losses away to both Villareal and Man Utd left them with half their games played and not a single goal scored. A very disappointing tally for a team that is so successful in their home country.
Since 1995, the only two Scottish teams to reach the Champions League’s group stages have been Celtic and Rangers (Hearts once reached the qualifying rounds in 2006, but were denied qualification by AEK Athens). Rangers have made it to the group stages but failed to go through 7 times and once reached the last 16 and Celtic have reached the groups 3 times and for the last two years have made it to the last sixteen.
Joining the Premier League
Every few years or so, the topic of Celtic and Rangers joining the English Premier League rears it’s head and the debate rages, with some fiercely opposed and some all for it. Not that I necessarily support the proposition, but it seems to me to be the only way they can ever start to challenge for the last four spots of the Champions League or beyond.
The biggest players in Europe and the world will invariably shy away from joining Scottish clubs because they want to be playing high quality opposition week in, week out. This breeds a catch-22 situation, whereby the best leagues in Europe (England, Spain and Italy) will continue to attract the best players and the other leagues continue to fall further behind, as it’s so much harder to attract star names. In the 16 years since the formation of the Champions League, 4 times it has been won by a Spanish team, 4 times by Italians and 3 times by English (33 of the 53 winners in both new and old formats of the competition, being from these three leagues too).
Scottish teams are often criticised for not being able to cope with the pace of other Eurpoean teams, and how many times has a player been electric in the SPL, then moved to the EPL, only to be a huge disappointment?
In a changing football world, will Scottish teams ever cut it in Europe’s most prestigious competition again? Or will the EPL, La Liga and Serie A dominate for the foreseeable future?
Editor: We’re aware that Celtic were the first British club to be crowned European champions in 1967. This is about the present premier European club competition, the Champions League, and future chances of a Scottish team winning it.
Martin Banks writes at the Aston Villa Blog.
The answer is actually when does the latest EPL sponsership end? The funny money poured into the EPL will not be seen again for a while after what has unfolded in the world markets and its nod effect on the econemies worldwide.
The days of the SPL as we see it are numbered, and so too the EPL. The powers that be in UEFA must be looking at the situation you state with three countries clubs dominating Europe. Our good friends at the Bundesliga must also be monitoring this situation as they have an extremely competitive league and attract huge crowds to their matches but do not have the same success in Europe. I’m pretty sure that given the choice, the big TV companies would rather see a Euro wide league with a continental audience as opposed to English Premiership. I mean Celtic v Real Madrid or Liverpool v AC Milan is way more attractive than Hull v Wigan or Arsenal v Blackburn. I fully expect the geography of football to dramatically change in the next few years which is why Celtic have themselves in a very healthy financial situation right now. The top four clubs in England on the other hand are financially gravely ill at the moment and need this league for completely different reasons. So Celtic will probably not win the Champions League again, but would have a terrific chance of winning the new Euro – Super League. Hail Hail
The idea of a European Superleague has been thrown around since I was a little boy but it doesn’t ever really seem likely to happen. The Champions League is close to that anyway.
They will never join the EPL simply because it would ruin Scottish football, if they combined British football together then wouldnt the Northern Irish teams be included? and since they play in the Irish league then all those teams would have to be included too.
Celtic and Rangers would be great assits to the EPL because they have absolutely massive fan bases but imo it will never happen
no, its not really possible at the moment. maybe in the next 10-15 years, it may be possible. if celtic or rangers get a good squad somehow, it may be possible. as is probably not.
well, at least, scotland is BETTER than england.