Celtic vs Legia Warsaw remains, to this day, one of the most controversial matches we’ve played in a long time.
Legia had given us a doing in our Champions League qualifier with them back in 2014. Ronny Deila’s Hoops lost 4-1 in Poland before further damage was done in Edinburgh in a 2-0 loss at Murrayfield.
It sent Celtic crashing out of the Champions League, and set Legia up nicely for a playoff spot. Only that didn’t happen. Legia fielded an ineligible player and would be punished by UEFA with a 3-0 loss for the match at Murrayfield. Celtic, therefore, progressed on away goals.
And it clearly still eats away at Legia’s former manager Berg. He’s been speaking in the Scottish Sun in the run-up to Legia’s Europa League qualifier against Rangers. It’s fair to say he’s still not over it.
“I don’t think a situation like this can ever leave you. It will stay with you for the rest of your life. What happened goes against every fair play rule in history. For Celtic to go through on away goals after being given a 3-0 victory was not right.
“It also took the chance to play in the Champions League away from the players. That should not be and they will never, ever get it back.
“Celtic, particularly given their history and stature, should not have sunk to this level. If you want football to be the winner, you have to make sure bureaucracy and politics are not involved. ”
Celtic vs Legia controversy had nothing to do with us
To this day, it’s still incredible that Legia believe we should’ve let them get away with it. These rules are in place for a reason, and they were punished for it. There’s only one place they should’ve been pointing the finger of blame towards and it was their admin department.
In addition to that, it’s almost as if they forget the way they were strutting about after the first leg defeat of Celtic. They had players coming out and talking about how we weren’t a test for them (Daily Mail). Granted, we clearly weren’t up to much, but it was classless from the Poles.
Legia were extremely disrespectful in victory, and were boasting all week. The fact they then wanted Celtic to play the game and let them go through was laughable.
They obviously didn’t really have a good grasp of who Peter Lawwell was either. There was absolutely no chance he would’ve let them away with anything if it meant we were getting upwards of £10million into the bank.
In the end, of course, Maribor knocked us out of the competition for a second time. Their 1-0 win in Glasgow coupled with the 1-1 draw in Slovenia sent us into the Europa League.
Still, if it wasn’t for Legia, we may not have had that cracking last-32 tie against Inter Milan later that season. Hopefully Berg will manage to one day get over it.
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