So with capturing the Treble Treble now a distant memory Celtic will return to competitive action on either Tuesday the 9th or Wednesday the 10th of July in the 1st Qualifying round of the Champions League.
Our opponents will be the champions of Bosnia & Herzegovina, FK Sarajevo with the first leg taking place at their home ground of the Koševo City Stadium aka the Asim Ferhatović – Hase stadium and as you’ll see below it’s got a pretty apt colour scheme.
Sarajevo is the capital city of Bosnia & Herzegovina and is situated along the Miljacka River in the very heart of the Balkans.
The stadium has the magnificent backdrop of the Dinaric Alps and is located in the Koševo district of town.
As well as being home to the countries current league champions it also acts as the national stadium and has a capacity of 34,500 so getting tickets shouldn’t be much of an issue as Sarajevo’s average attendance last season was 5,225.
They are owned by Malaysian multi-millionaire and Malky Mackay’s arch-nemesis Vincent Tan though his investment has been somewhat minor thus far since purchasing them in 2013 and any expected big-spending has never materialised.
On the pitch, they swept to an unprecedented domestic double last season with their first league title in four years and first national cup in five.
In the league, they won 21 of 33 fixtures with seven draws and five losses hitting the net 68 times in the process to finish on 70 points, five ahead of second-placed Zrinjski Mostar.
In the cup, they won all six of their fixtures en route to the final before winning 3-1 over two legs against NK Široki Brijeg to secure the domestic double for the first time in their history.
Their top marksman is veteran 34-year-old striker Mersudin Ahmetović who has two caps for the national team and scored 14 goals in the league with 16 overall.
Their captain is 31-year-old Macedonian internationalist Krste Velkoski who has 56 goals in 151 games over two spells with Sarajevo as well as 103 career goals from 311 club appearances.
On the sidelines manager, Husref Musemić played over 150 games for the club and is incredibly in his fifth spell as manager. Since his return in August of 2017, he’s won 46 of 73 games with only 16 losses.
So now let’s look at their European form and to be honest it’s anything but intimating.
Back in 2014, they were eliminated at the Play-off round of the Europea League going down 10-2 on aggregate to Borussia Mönchengladbach which included a 7-0 away defeat having previously defeated Haugesund of Norway (3-2 on agg) and Atromitos of Greece (4-3 on agg) in tight encounters with the second one requiring extra time.
The following year they were beaten 3-0 on aggregate by Poland’s Lech Poznan in the second qualifying round of the Champions League and in 2017 they went out at the 1st Qualifying round stage of the Europa League to FC Zaria Bălți of Moldova on penalties after a 3-3 aggregate draw.
In last season’s Europa League 1st Qualifying round they cruised past FC Banants of Armenia 5-1 on aggregate with a 2-1 win away and 3-0 win at home but then met Atalanta in the second round where after a highly credible 2-2 draw in Italy they were summarily crushed 8-0 at home.
Yep, you read that right, EIGHT-NIL.
So based on that we should feel pretty confident about our chances of progression.
The tie isn’t for another three weeks yet and a lot can happen in that time in regards to comings and goings within the squad.
Sarajevo tends to stick to the domestic market and rarely spend much so don’t expect much in the way of significant squad augmentation there.
We, of course, are already shorn of Cristian Gamboa, Scott Allen, Emilio Izaguirre and Dedryk Boyata who all departed under freedom of contract come June 1st not to mention the departing loan players such as Jeremy Toljan, Oliver Burke, Timothy Weah and Stefan Benkovic so the squad is pretty depleted.
Mikael Lustig is still to decide his future and Olivier Ntcham has also been linked with a big-money move away on multiple occasions in the past few weeks so there will likely be some development on those two fronts by the time of the Sarajevo tie.
Coming in so far is the dynamic Ukranian winger Maryan Shved who finally joined up with the squad after being signed last January before being loaned back for the remainder of the season to Karpaty Lviv. He scored 15 goals in 24 games last term coming in off the wing so looks like somebody to get pretty excited about.
One player who certainly won’t be helping us progress is, of course, David Turnbull after his proposed £3 million move from Motherwell collapsed when negotiations over personal terms broke down. He now looks certain to move to Norwich City and will go with probably nobodies best wishes outside of possibly his close friends and family.
Anyway, if we do progress past our Bosnian opposition then we’ll face either KF Shkëndija of Macedonia or Nõmme Kalju FC of Estonia with the Macedonians starting big favourites.
So as not to potentially end up with egg on my face I’ll give Sarajevo the respect they deserve and wait until our tie with them is over before daring to profile our potential second-round opponents but again both are very beatable.
More to come nearer the time but even with the squad in its current state I’m pretty confident and going by the keystone defending on display below with very good reason.
Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qMhpYttghU
....Always A Tim! 