Before Tuesday night’s game, Athletic Club paid a thoughtful tribute to Celtic legend Billy McNeill.
The Hoops have a great relationship with the Basque side who have shown enormous love for McNeill in recent years.
In April 2019, around a week before his death, Athletic honoured the iconic Celtic captain with their ‘One Club Man’ award. (BBC)
They also posted about Cesar on social media in March 2020 and have been huge fans of him throughout recent history.
That theme continued prior to this week’s friendly when representatives from Bilbao laid flowers at O’Neill’s statue on The Celtic Way.
As shown in this Celtic video, an Athletic official is seen resting the flowers on the iconic statue. Celtic Foundation chief executive Tony Hamilton is also on the scene and is one of the many applauding the thoughtful gesture.
The tribute didn’t go unnoticed outside Celtic Park with plenty in attendance, and over 175,000 people viewing the clip on Twitter in the first five hours.
Athletic Club have handled themselves with absolute class in recent times and it seems like there is a genuine connection between the clubs built on friendship.
Many Celtic fans will want them to do well in La Liga this season and improve on their 8th placed finish last year.
Having met them in Bilbao in 2011 and now Glasgow in 2023, it would be nice to face them in an actual European tie.
Champions League next season anyone?
In other news, Anton McElhone departed Celtic this summer
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