Neil Lennon has hit out at “ridiculous” Champions League qualification scheduling. Just like last year the Hoops must navigate four two-legged ties to make the group stage of Europe’s premier club competition.
That means that Lennon’s side could be forced to play eight competitive matches in as many weeks during the whole of July and August – less than two months after a 63 game season finished.
Celtic know the make-up of their first two potential European opponents and it looks relatively favourable. However, Lennon still thinks it’s going to be a mega ask to qualify.
He told the Scottish Sun: “The eight games in eight weeks schedule is ridiculous. That’s almost a quarter of a season before a ball has hardly been kicked in the Premiership.
“We’ve touched on this for years and there is no benefit for any team.
“There is no respite at all for the players — it’s very difficult.
“But I can’t think of the European qualifiers as being arduous. We have to take it on.”
Scotland must improve in the co-efficient table
Qualification is expected to change with the new European club competition format in 2024. However, before then, the only way Scottish clubs are going to find qualification less arduous is by improving the co-efficient.
Scotland is currently ranked 20th out of Europe’s 55 countries on the UEFA leaderboard. We have a total co-efficient of 22.125 for the past five seasons. Last year, we had our best season of the five by far – scoring 6.75 points.
That was mainly down to ourselves making the last 32 of the Europa League and Rangers putting up a decent showing in the group stage of the tournament. If we could look to emulate that score every season we’d be looking at a five year average of 33.75.
That would put us 11th in the overall standings ahead of the likes of the Netherlands and Greece. To put that in perspective, 11th place right now gets five teams in European competition.
The champions of the country enter the ‘Champions route’ in the third qualification round – two rounds later than Celtic – while the second place team also get a shot at the Champions League. They also get three more teams in the Europa League.
That is the future for Scotland right now – and it is achievable.
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