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The players exit the tunnel to a wall of noise.
The lights are down and the scarves are up at Celtic Park as “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is belted out.
Justin Kavanagh emails: “Great photo of Rod! He’s certainly got the gladrags on tonight, but does that bandage on his right fist suggest he’s already had some handbags? If so, it probably won’t be the last we’ll see at Celtic Park tonight in what should be a quite tasty match. Don’t spare the Rod, Bhoys.”
The main plan for Celtic here is to keep it tight early on against one of the most exciting front fours in Europe. You do not get many Musiala-type players in the Scottish Premiership.
Rod’s “had a couple of drinks”.
TNT have got Rod Stewart pitchside. Can’t wait to see where this goes …
WhoScored have kindly previewed this game for us.
A 1-0 win over Young Boys in their penultimate group game guaranteed Celtic’s spot in the playoff stage of the Champions League. However, they could not have been given a tougher test in the knockout round. Bayern Munich are unbeaten in their last 13 matches against Scottish sides in Europe; the last Scottish team to beat them were Hearts in the Uefa Cup in 1989.
In truth, Bayern should have qualified automatically for the last 16. They scored 20 goals in the group stage (only Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund scored more) and they had more shots (185) and shots on target (69) than any other team. Bayern were let down by their away form in the group stage, winning just one of their four matches on the road.
Celtic Park will be rocking well before kickoff on Wednesday night and the team will need their fans. Daizen Maeda is back after suspension and Jota’s return is a boost for Celtic in the wake of Kyogo Furuhashi’s move to Rennes.
If Everton v Liverpool is more your thing, Niall McVeigh has you covered.
The atmosphere at Celtic Park will be key tonight.
Starting lineups
Celtic (4-3-3): Schmeichel; Johnston, Carter-Vickers, Trusty, Taylor; McGregor, Engels, Hatate; Kuhn Maeda, Idah
Subs: Sinisalo, Bain, Scales, Yang, McGowan, Schlupp, Kenny, Murray, Ralston, Nawrocki
Bayern (4-2-3-1): Neuer; Lahmer, Upamecano, Dier, Guerreiro; Kimmich, Goretzka; Olise, Musiala, Sane; Kane
Subs: Ulreich, Urbig, Min-jae, Gnabry, Coman, Ito, Boey, Vidovic, Muller, Buchmann, Stanisic, Pavlovic
Ewan Murray looks back at Bayern’s Scottish clashes.
Preamble
Famously, some smarty pants at ITV once tweeted ‘Bye bye Celtic’ after they were drawn in the Champions League to face Barcelona, Benfica and Spartak Moscow in the group stage. Neil Lennon did not take it well and rubbed it into the face of the social media scamp by leading the Scottish side through to the knockouts, including a famous win over Barcelona.
It was rumoured that Lennon stuck in the tweet in the dressing room to use it as inspiration, giving two fingers to the London-based broadcaster. “It was a cheap shot really,” Lennon said of the tweet. “It was born out of ignorance.”
Once again, from the outside it looks like Celtic have a very difficult Champions League task in front of them. Bayern Munich are in town in this playoff novelty and there will be a second leg in Germany next week. The odds are against them but Celtic will, once again, be very eager to prove any doubters wrong.
Kick-off: 8pm GMT
