Red Bull Salzburg vs. Celtic: What happened last time these two sides met?

By Jay Williams

October 2, 2018

Red Bull Salzburg vs Celtic is going to be a tricky ask on Thursday night in the Europa League group stage.

RB Salzburg are in dominant form in the league, winning all of their games so far.

Celtic, on the other hand, have had a slow start to the season and are only now starting to show their true form.

The Austrian side have met Celtic on two occasions in the past, both of which were in the Europa League in 2014.

Four years on and they prepare to face each other again. So here, we take a look at the last two matches.

(SALZBURG 2-2 CELTIC – 18th September 2014)

Mubarak Wakaso scored on his debut against RB Salzburg (Samuel Kubani/EuroFootball/Getty Images)

For their opening Europa League fixture in 2014, Celtic travelled to Austria to take on Salzburg.

Ronny Deila led the Bhoys out and they earned a respectable 2-2 draw, despite playing most of the game on the back foot.

But Celtic led twice. Mubarak Wakaso gave the visitors the lead on 14 minutes with a debut goal before they were pegged back by Alan’s deflected strike.

With half an hour left to play, captain Scott Brown hit a volley which went in via a deflection.

But with 12 minutes left on the clock, Jonathan Soriano’s free-kick earned the hosts a point.

On the night it was a great result for Celtic. It set them up nicely in the group, and nobody came out of Austria with any regrets.

(CELTIC 1-3 SALZBURG – 24th November 2014)

Stefan Johansen’s goal was not enough to prevent Celtic’s loss in the home clash (Mark Runnacles/Getty Images)

Celtic suffered a disappointing 3-1 loss against RB Salzburg in the return game at Celtic Park, but progressed nonetheless.

Romanian side Astra beat Dynamo Zagreb in another fixture, giving Celtic an unassailable four-point gap over third place with one game left to play.

Deila’s men were disappointing on the night, though. Within the first 15 minutes, Alan had struck twice to put the visitors 2-0 up. Parkhead fell silent, and the performance was unusually flat given Celtic’s form.

Stefan Johansen got the Scots back into the game on the half hour mark and they pressed for an equaliser. The stadium started to get into its usual groove and the Hoops were looking likely for a second.

But ultimately, they were hit on the counter-attack. Naby Keita, now of Liverpool, provided the finishing touch.

Celtic progressed through to the next round despite defeat to Red Bull, and set-up a last-32 clash with Inter Milan. Unfortunately, that was as far the Bhoys would go, getting knocked out 5-3 on aggregate to the Italian side).