Scottish clubs emerged from the first legs of their European play-offs with two wins, two draws and one defeat. This is a fairly strong week, given how rare it is to have five Scottish teams playing in a European week, and rarer still for them to suffer only one defeat.
Five Scottish clubs have played in the same European matchweek only 9 times since the start of 1989, and this is the first time since August 2021!
Five of those five-team weeks have produced just one Scottish defeat, while this week’s two wins and two draws represent only the second exact return of W2 D2 L1, matching August 2021 (W3 D1 L1 was achieved three times since 1989).
Celtic and Rangers supplied the victories this time, Hibernian and Hearts drew, and Motherwell were the only side beaten.
Three of the five teams also kept clean sheets, making this the first five-club European week since September 1989 in which at least four Scottish sides avoided defeat and three recorded clean sheets.
It was a good start to the play-off round all things considered, but the ties have only reached half-time. All five remain alive going into the second legs, although some are in considerably healthier positions than others. This article will summarise the first legs before reviewing the coefficient points added this season and where that puts us in UEFA’s rankings.
Only once have exactly five Scottish clubs played in the same European week and all five avoided defeat. That came in September 1971, when Aberdeen, Celtic, Dundee, Rangers and St Johnstone all won.
Celtic
Celtic produced the most impressive Scottish result of the week and now have a commanding advantage in their Champions League play-off against LASK. Benjamin Nygren opened the scoring at Celtic Park after 26 minutes before Camilo Durán added two superb goals, giving the Scottish champions a 3-0 lead to take to Linz. The winners will enter the Champions League league phase, while the losers will drop into the Europa League.
Celtic would be paid a minimum of around €29m with progress, and ‘only’ around €13m should they drop into the Europa league, before ticket and hospitality sales and further prize money for points won in the league phase.
The result extended LASK’s club-record winless European run to 11 matches, while Celtic have now won six of their nine home Champions League qualifying play-off games since the round was introduced in 2009.
Progress would also end a run of five successive failed Champions League qualifying campaigns for Celtic, who last navigated the qualifiers against Astana in 2017. They subsequently lost to AEK Athens, CFR Cluj, Ferencváros and Midtjylland between 2018 and 2021, before last season’s penalty shootout defeat by Kairat Almaty.
Their three Champions League appearances since then came through automatic entry as Scottish Premiership winners, back when our coefficient saw us ranked in the top 10 leagues. We’re now 18th…..
Hibs
Hibernian returned from Belgium with a second successive goalless European away draw, and they’ve only lost one of the last five European away games: the 2-0 disaster against Malisheva earlier this summer.
Their 0-0 against Gent stretched their unbeaten run in Europe to four matches, the club’s longest since 2018. Gent have conceded only once in six European games and have kept five clean sheets during that sequence, so chances were always likely to be scarce. It makes the early missed penalty by Owen Elding all the more frustrating.
The return at Easter Road next Thursday will see Hibs looking for a first win over Belgian opposition, although four of their five such meetings have now been drawn.
Any victory would take Hibs into the Conference League phase, with minimum earnings of around €4.3m before ticket and hospitality sales and any further prize money for points won in the league phase.
Motherwell
Motherwell’s evening began superbly and ended with their road to the league phase all but closed. Regan Charles-Cook scored after two minutes against Freiburg, but Matthias Ginter equalised before the interval, converted a penalty in the second half and Keisuke Goto added a third in the 96th minute.
The second Freiburg goal came from a penalty after VAR intervened and recommended a review of Martin Moormann’s challenge. He was sent off for a DOGSO offence without making a genuine attempt to play the ball, a decision which completely turned the tie.
The final goal obviously changed the scale of Motherwell’s task, who now need a two-goal win in Freiburg just to force extra time. The defeat ended Motherwell’s club record equalling four-game unbeaten European run. They had conceded only once across those four matches before Freiburg scored three at Fir Park.
A three goal victory would take Motherwell into the Conference League phase, with minimum earnings of around €4.3m before ticket and hospitality sales and any further prize money for points won in the league phase. They will be paid a €1.275m elimination payment if they don’t perform miracles.
Hearts
Hearts can be pleased with the result on the night given they trailed Rapid Vienna at half-time. They did however move 2-1 ahead through a Serge-Philippe Raux-Yao own goal and a James Wilson wonder strike from range. Nikolaus Wurmbrand equalised with 11 minutes remaining, leaving the clubs level before the second leg in Vienna, which is on Wednesday to avoid a city clash with other fixtures.
The comeback extended Hearts’ club-record European winless run to nine matches, covering three draws and six defeats. Rapid’s sequence of four consecutive European wins ended, although the Austrian side remain unbeaten in five European games.
Any victory would take Hearts into the Conference League phase, with minimum earnings of around €4.9m before ticket and hospitality sales and any further prize money for points won in the league phase.
Rangers
Rangers completed the Scottish week with a laboured 1-0 win over Jablonec in front of 34,701, their lowest European attendance at Ibrox since 32,223 watched the 1-1 draw with Maribor in August 2011, 15 years ago. Ryan Naderi struck five minutes after half-time and Rangers were forced to protect the lead after Cammy Devlin’s 74th-minute red card, minutes after coming on as a sub. It was only Rangers’ second win in 14 European matches, both of them 1-0 victories at Ibrox.
Avoiding defeat would take Rangers into the Conference League phase, with minimum earnings of around €6.2m before ticket and hospitality sales and any further prize money for points won in the league phase.