Malmo player sends message to Celtic defender after dumping out rivals

By David Walton

August 11, 2021

Malmo star Felix Beijmo sent a late-night message to Celtic man Carl Starfelt last night after dumping Rangers out of the UEFA Champions League qualifiers.

The Swedes produced a superb performance at Ibrox to take a 2-1 win and resign Steven Gerrard’s side to a Europa League playoff tie instead. It means Rangers will now miss out on a guaranteed £13.4m for qualifying for UEFA’s top competition.

The missing of those finances is tremendous news for Celtic. It ensures our rivals can’t go racing ahead of us with higher profile signings this summer. In all seriousness, it could lead to them selling some of their top earners instead.

Pre-match, Celtic defender Carl Starfelt sent a message to Malmo player and former teammate Felix Beijmo wishing him luck. And it didn’t go past the Swede either as he made sure to send a class message back to the summer Celtic signing:

Funnily enough, Beijmo actually only managed to play for nine minutes throughout the whole tie. He came on for the final seven last night to help try and see the game out.

Even so, this is great to see. Celtic have needed something like this for a long time. Something that can help sway the power in Glasgow once again. Rangers missing out on UCL funds is a big step towards that.

Malmo do Celtic a big favour in Govan

Starfelt played with Beijmo back in their days with IF Brommapojkarna in Sweden. It’s clear there’s still a positive relationship between the pair too.

But it’s been a big couple of weeks for Celtic overall. Rangers have suddenly lost three games in a row. Combine that with the fact we’re showing extremely promising signs once again and it leads to a turnaround in moods within Glasgow.

Now, we’re the ones seemingly playing with a freedom whilst Rangers struggle from game to game. And it’s fair to say that Gerrard is getting off lightly so far.

Could you imagine the stick Ange Postecoglou would be getting for losing three consecutive games at Celtic? There were already columnists asking questions after the defeat to Hearts. So surely Gerrard will be facing the same heat after last night.

We’ll see. But in terms of the football, it was another big night for the Hoops last night and we weren’t even playing. All of a sudden, many will be left rethinking their pre-season title predictions even at this early stage.

Rangers already look as though they’re struggling to deal with the pressure.

In other news, Celtic should be delighted as rivals miss out on major cash bonus