Bodo/Glimt have announced that they’ve sold out the Aspmyra Stadium for their Europa Conference League clash with Celtic on Thursday night.
Celtic go into the tie 3-1 down after a dismal night’s performance at Parkhead last week. It looks a long shot to qualify at this rate, but the Hoops will be going all out to try and make it a night to remember on the plastic pitch.
The Aspmyra only holds a capacity of 4,616 [Bodo/Glimt]. The Hoops, meanwhile, will only take 400 supporters to Norway too as they look to provide Ange’s Bhoys with the backing required to turn the tie around.
But it appears the Bodo/Glimt supporters will be turning up in their numbers too to make it a tasty atmosphere inside the Aspmyra. The Norwegian champions announced the news as they reflected on their Celtic Park success. The club’s official ticket purchasing platform states that all areas of the ground are now packed with no seats available.
Bodo made it a hostile atmosphere against Roma last year despite the low number of supporters allowed to enter the Aspmyra. Celtic will need to expect a similar type of environment.
In addition to that, it’s said to be a hellish night on Thursday with strong gales and heavy showers expected [NRK]. If we’re to do this, we’re going to have to combat some hectic conditions.
Everything about Thursday night is going to be a challenge for Celtic
There’s absolutely nothing about this game on Thursday night that’s going to be routine. The idea that we’re going to rock up and have ourselves level in the tie by half-time by playing silky football needs to go out of the window.
This is going to be a sheer scrap. The weather conditions won’t make it any easier. However, the fact they’ll be roared on by a powerful support is going to stiffen the challenge further.
Thankfully, Celtic have already combatted some feisty atmospheres already this season. They came out of a hostile Ferencvaros with a fine 3-2 success back in November. We also managed to net 3 goals with no supporters away to Real Betis too. We can certainly find the net in front of big opposition crowds, but it’s keeping it out that’s going to be a problem.
There’s no denying the fact that conceding 25 goals in 13 European matches this season is disappointing. 15 came in the Europa League group stages alone. That tells its own story about where we’ve been going wrong, and the fact we shipped another 3 last week suggest improvements are still to be made.
Ange has glaring concerns over Celtic’s ability to defend set-pieces too. So we have plenty to be working on in the build-up to Thursday night.
One almighty challenge lies ahead of us. Let’s see if we can find what would perhaps be our most impressive performance of the season.
In other news, Joe Hart sends classy Instagram message to Celtic teammate Chris Jullien after injury recovery
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