Home Comforts

It’s another busy week of European football action with four games over the next three days to focus on. The first two of those involve Celtic, with both the men and the women in Champions League action. Tonight, it’s the men who are in Croatia for match day six against Dinamo Zagreb. Kick off is 5.45pm oor time and it’s live on TNT Sports 2.

Celtic are currently in twentieth place in the table, which is interestingly only a couple of points outside the top eight that qualify automatically for the last sixteen, but actually is a non-seeded place in the knockout round. It is, however, a full four points ahead of the places that get knocked out of Europe altogether. But, of course, there are eight games in this campaign so Celtic haven’t quite secured knockout European football yet!

Celtic have picked up eight points from this campaign so far, which is their best showing in the Champions League since the 2012/13 season when Celtic picked up a Scottish record Champions League points tally of ten points. It’s a different format these days, but it’s still good to see more points on the board, and there is a chance tonight to beat that high water mark points tally after six games!

I will point out here that Rangers picked up eight points in 1992/93 when it was two points for a win, but If you converted their two wins (and four draws) to three points for a win then you’d still have ten points. So the point still stands, as does the point that this is a different format with teams no longer playing each other twice. So really this is uncharted territory, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

Celtic started with a 5-1 win at home against Slovan Bratislava.

But then lost 7-1 away to Borussia Dortmund, still their only defeat in all competitions so far this season.

The 0-0 draw away to Atalanta got things back on track.

Before beating RB Leipzig 3-1 at home.

Last time out was a 1-1 draw at home to Club Brugge, a game that might have been targeted as one to win but in the end was one Celtic will be happy to have picked up a point in. Daizen Maeda’s finish is beautiful, but Cameron Carter-Vickers won’t want to see this one again…

Dinamo Zagreb got their campaign off to a horrible start with a 9-2 defeat away to Bayern Munich. Harry Kane scored four, three of them from the spot, whilst Raphael Guerreiro, Michael Olise twice, Leroy Sane and Leon Goretzka all got on the scoresheet too. Bruno Petkovic and Takuya Ogiwara did pull it back to 3-2 early in the second half, but that didn’t last long. Bayern also had two goals ruled out for offside!

A 2-2 draw at home against Monaco got Dinamo off the mark on match day two. Petar Sucic opened the scoring in first half injury time, Martin Baturina doubled the lead midway through the second half, but Mohammed Salisu pulled one back with quarter of an hour left and Denis Zakaria levelled from the penalty spot in the last minute of regular time. Dinamo’s coach, Nenad Bjelica was sent off in injury time!

Then, a 2-0 win away to Red Bull Salzburg on match day three really got Zagreb moving. Sandro Kulenovic opened the scoring early in the second half, Alexander Schlager was then sent off for Salzburg before Bruno Petkovic sealed the win late on.

Their last two games have similar results to Celtic’s opening fixtures, albeit the other way around. On match day four, they won 4-1 away to Slovan Bratislava. David Strelec gave the hosts an early lead but Dario Spikic soon equalised. Petar Sucic put Dinamo ahead after half an hour, before two second half goals from Sandro Kulenovic made the win safe.

But last time out, on match day five, Dinamo lost 3-0 at home against Borussia Dortmund. Jamie Gittens scored late on in the first half, with Ramy Bensebaini scoring early in the second half and Serhou Guirassy finishing the game with the third in the last minute.

Dinamo are currently in twenty third place in the table on seven points, which is still three points ahead of the dreaded twenty fifth place. So you can imagine they’ll see this game as vital if they’re to reach the knockout round. Especially given their remaining games are away to Arsenal and at home to AC Milan – both pot two teams.

But this is not a happy Dinamo Zagreb camp, one that is suffering badly from injuries at the moment. They’re currently six points off the pace in the Croatia First Division, behind both Rijeka and Hadjuk Split. They drew 1-1 at home against Slaven on Friday, continuing a run of five games without a win since the Slovan Bratislava match, and travel to BK Lokomotiva this coming Saturday.

They haven’t won at home since beating NK Lokomotiva 5-1 at the end of September, have only won two of thirteen games in the Champions League at home and none in this campaign so far except for the Qarabag playoff qualifier which they won 3-0.

Then again, Celtic haven’t won away in the Champions League since beating Anderlecht in 2017/18, one of only two away wins in the Champions League group stages that Celtic have managed, the other coming in the aforementioned 2012/13 campaign against Spartak Moscow.

Also, in more bad news for Celtic, the home team has won every time the two sides have met in the past – although Celtic have come out on top in two of the previous three campaigns.

In the 1963/64 Cup Winners Cup first round, Celtic won 3-0 at home with two goals from Stevie Chalmers and one from John Hughes, but Zagreb, representing Yugoslavia back then, won 2-1 at home. Bobby Murdoch adding to Celtic’s goals in the tie before Stjepan Lamza and Slaven Zambata reduce the deficit. Nevertheless, Celtic progressed 4-2 on aggregate. Here’s footage from the home leg, as I can’t find footage from the away leg.

The 1998/99 Champions League second qualifying round paired the sides, but while Celtic won the first leg 1-0 at home courtesy of Darren Jackson, it was in the midst of a bonus row the players were having with the board and they went on to lose the away leg 3-0. Silvio Maric levelled the tie, but it definitely didn’t help that Croatia Zagreb, as Dinamo were known for a short period, had a player like Robert Prosinecki in their midst – he scored the other two. There was also a certain Mark Viduka in the Zagreb side, a few months before he’d later go on to sign for Celtic. This time we have the away leg video.

The most recent meeting came in the 2014/15 Europa League group stage. The game at Celtic Park finished 1-0 courtesy of an early Kris Commons goal, whilst the game in Zagreb was a 4-3 thriller. A Marko Pjaca hat trick and a goal from Marcelo Brozovic were enough to beat goals from Kris Commons, Stefan Scepovic and a Josip Pivaric own goal. But by the time that game came around, Celtic had already qualified for the knockout stages ahead of Dinamo. Can’t find footage of either game from the campaign!

That’s it as far as Celtic are concerned, Dinamo Zagreb are the only Croatian side that they’ve met, but Zagreb have had two other Scottish ties over the years – and the home win pattern continues into those.

In the 1966/67 Inter-Cities Fairs’ Cup second round, Dinamo Zagreb beat Dunfermline Athletic 2-0 at home, and lost 4-2 at East End Park. That was just enough to progress on away goals, and ultimately was an important tie in the history of the club given Dinamo went on to beat Leeds United 2-0 in aggregate in the final! I can’t find any footage of the Dunfermline game, so this from the final will need to do.

I’d like to say it was as close as any club came to stopping them that season, but the previous round was decided on the toss of a coin against Spartak Brno! But let’s not talk about Brno…

The 2009/10 Europa League playoff round paired Dinamo Zagreb with Hearts, and whilst it was a 2-0 win at Tynecastle courtesy of Michael Stewart and. Marius Zaliukas, it was already far too late as Zagreb had won 4-0 at home in the first leg.

So Celtic are going to have to go against history tonight if they’re to pick up what could be a vital win in this competition. 11 points should be more than enough for the knockout round, and whilst there are still two games to go after this, Celtic will be hoping to finish as high up the table as possible as well as qualify. Of the four away games in this campaign, this might well be the most winnable of them. Dortmund and Atalanta were against teams from higher pots than Celtic, whilst Aston Villa will be a tough ask despite their pot four seeding. Dinamo Zagreb are, like Celtic, a pot three seed, albeit one with a higher coefficient than Celtic.

Celtic go into this match flying high domestically. They beat Hibernian 3-0 at home on Saturday, and that put them nine points clear of Aberdeen at the top of the league with a game in hand. Indeed, the eleven points clear of third place Rangers may now be more relevant given the parity of games played. Next up for Celtic is the League Cup final on Sunday at Hampden against the holders Rangers.

We’ll come onto more about them on Thursday of course, but in the meantime, good luck to Celtic tonight!