Celtic FC Women have qualified for the UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage for the very first time in the club’s history with a 3-0 aggregate win over Ukrainian champions Vorskla Poltava.
Holding a 1-0 lead after Sunday’s first leg, Elena Sadiku’s side superbly finished the job on Thursday night in Airdrie thanks to goals from Emma Lawton and Shannon McGregor.
It’s the first time a Scottish side has qualified for this group stage format and represents a big step forward for the project at Celtic. It’ll be a fantastic representation for the club and the SWPL as a whole.
Celtic overcome nerves to show their Champions League class
It was a nervy, tense opening 45 minutes at the start of tonight’s second leg. Celtic and Vorskla went into the interval with the tie still very much in the balance.
However, Sadiku inspired her charges to come out and attack the game in the second half.
The breakthrough came after fine work from Lucy Ashworth-Clifford, who got the bye line and delivered a tempting cross for Lawton to expertly head home in the 52nd minute.
Then, 11 minutes later, Murphy Agnew delivered a menacing ball for McGregor to fire home from close range, putting the tie beyond all doubt.
That effectively killed things off as a contest but the Ghirls showed their professionalism to see through the result, even threatening to fire in more goals late on.
They undoubtedly deserve their place in a massive group stage against the best that the continent has to offer.
Women’s Champions League draw details as Celtic enter
Sadiku said before the match that Celtic qualifying for the groups would put the club “on the map” in women’s football and her team now join an elite line-up.
Only 16 teams make it through to the next stage, consisting of four groups of four teams. The top two teams in each group then qualify for the quarter-finals.
The draw takes place tomorrow Friday 27th September at noon.
Celtic will join last year’s champions Barcelona as well as Lyon, Wolfsburg, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Juventus, St Polten, Roma, Valerenga, Hammarby, Galatasaray and the other Round 2 winners.
There are six matchdays, taking place between October and December with all matches finished by the week before Christmas.
The knockout rounds will then follow from March 2025.
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