Pic by Ethan Barlow

By Ethan Barlow

Celtic have the opportunity to secure UEFA Champions League (UCL) knockout football for the first time in over a decade, tomorrow. After wins against Slovan Bratislava and RB Leipzig, draws against Atalanta, Club Brugge and Dinamo Zagreb and a crushing loss in Dortmund. Brendan Rodgers’ side have given themselves a great chance to secure a last 32 playoff place with a game to spare.  

Celtic Park will host its fourth first-phase Champions League match in a season, for the first time ever. With the competition’s format change, Hoops’ fans have seen the best out of their players in this campaign, and to secure progression out of the ‘Swiss model’, they require three-points against the Swiss champions, BSC Young Boys (YB).  

The Scottish Premiership league leaders are overwhelming favourites against this season’s competition’s whipping boys. Switzerland’s most decorated club of the decade have fallen way below recent standards, both domestically and in Europe. Spending the early parts of the season rock bottom of the Swiss Super League, they find themselves in ninth, eight points off the top. In the Champions League, YB have failed to pick up a single point, being thrashed in their last two matches against Atalanta (1-6) and Stuttgart (5-1).  

The Celts’ recent performances have possibly shown signs of complacency but they should have more than enough to overturn Giorgio Contini’s side, in his first UCL task as a manager. Contini took charge of Bern’s biggest club, in December, after previously helping second division clubs to the top tier and spending periods with mid-table Swiss sides. The appointment comes off the back of an impressive stint as assistant coach with the national team.  

Journalist and Swiss football expert Craig King gave his verdict on YB’s recent appointment and the general reception from the fans: “It has been met with optimism for sure. I think both the appointment of [Raphael] Wicky in 2022 and especially [Patrick] Rahmen last year were met with split opinion but Contini is widely-credited as being a huge part of Switzerland’s success at EURO 2024 and has done a reasonable job at other clubs, especially Vaduz. So, there is belief that he can get YB firing again, or at the very least start moving them up the table. It will be interesting to see how Contini fares as this is his biggest job to date having never managed a title-challenging side in the top-flight.” 

Contini started his managerial tenor at YB, at the weekend, with a home stalemate against bottom of the league, Winterthur. This was the first match following Switzerland’s extended winter break. Despite the result being a poor one, King highlighted the positives as well as the negatives of the manager’s debutant match: “They created a lot of chances but their finishing was poor on the night. Despite their troubles, YB are never usually that goal-shy and I think if they continue creating that number of opportunities under Contini they will score plenty.”     

Despite YB’s terrible campaign thus far, they’ve pulled off far greater upsets in the past. Triumphs against Juventus, Manchester United and Bayer Leverkusen are all in recent memory, but all came in Bern. YB’s notoriously poor away European record mixed with Celtic’s run of five home matches unbeaten in the competition would bring confidence to the Celtic faithful.  

Young Boys’ marquee results of the season came with home and away wins in qualifying against Galatasaray to earn their spot in the hat for the inaugural league phase draw. Despite being under different management, the set-up and gameplan may bare very similar. 

Young Boys’ Predicted Lineup:

King believes there could also be starts for Mohamed Aly Camara, Ebrima Colley and former Rangers’ striker Cedric Itten as he gave his thoughts on where the visitors strengths and weaknesses lie as well as their most dangerous talents: “YB are suspect defensively, especially in Europe and have persisted with Mo Camara (missing through suspension at the weekend) who is a mistake waiting to happen in almost every game. They’ve shipped so many goals not only domestically but especially in the Champions League and Celtic should be able to score a few goals. As for players to watch, Filip Ugrinic is one of the few bright sparks from this term while Joel Monteiro earned his first cap for Switzerland last year and is an exciting talent. Alan Virginius (scorer of the winner in Istanbul) and Meshack Elia (scored a wonderful goal against Leipzig last season) are good options from the bench. Elia hasn’t featured as much this season but is very quick and a goal threat both directly and from his assists.  

This match was touted as one of Celtic’s best chances at a win when the draw was made but not many would have seen Young Boys falling into their current state. If Brendan Rodgers and his team can avoid complacency and underestimating their opponents they should be on course to knockout football, and at least one more tie at Celtic Park.