It’s almost a year to the day since Celtic went down 3-1 to Red Bull Salzburg in the Europa League.
On Thursday 4th October 2018, Odsonne Edouard’s early strike wasn’t enough in Austria as a double from Munas Dabbur and a solo Takumi Minamino strike got the victory for the hosts.
Fast forward a year and Minamino was again scoring for Salzburg in Europe – this time in the Champions League against the current holders Liverpool. The Red Bull side, now managed by Jesse Marsch, showed all their attacking qualities as they came from 3-0 down at Anfield to level the match before eventually losing 4-3.
Despite that defeat, Salzburg are still ahead of Jurgen Klopp’s men in the group and in with a fighting chance of making the last 16.
Salzburg story shows Celtic what can be achieved
Their rise over the past 12 months sends Celtic an interesting message. It just goes to show that you can make the leap from the Europa League to the Champions League, providing you put the right building blocks in place.
To be fair, Neil Lennon will know this all too well. His previous Celtic side that made the Champions League last 16 in 2012 had failed to qualify from their Europa League group just a year earlier. The failure against Udinese on matchday six of that season would have hurt Lennon, but in hindsight it may have put the foundations in place for the wins against Spartak Moscow and Barcelona the following year.
Lennon will look at that, and Salzburg, as a perfect example of what he could achieve with this Celtic side. If we can grow as a team over our Europa League campaign it could really set us up for another tilt next season – hopefully in the Champions League.
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