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Deila issues Qarabag rallying call
Celtic manager Ronny Deila is banking on the Celtic Park factor to help his side overcome Qarabag in the Champions League third qualifying round.
The Azerbaijani outfit competed in the Europa League last season and beat eventual finalists Dnipro in a group stage game in what will serve as a warning to the Scottish champions.
He expects a tougher test than Stjarnan provided in the last round when Celtic ran up a 6-1 aggregate scoreline.
“They had a very hard group in the Europa League previous year. We have to be at the Inter Milan level to beat them and that’s going to be a fantastic challenge for us”.
The manager may have been aware of Qarabag’s potential threat but was confident in the qualities his own side possess.
“They have to go to Scotland the same as we have to go to them”. If we can do that then I think we have a very good chance to win and that motivates me.
‘Good performances, OK, you get the experience and you also get money.
“We have to create the performance we did against Inter Milan, and then we also need the fans in Celtic Park on Wednesday – that’s so unbelievably important”, he said. It’s going to be tough to beat us.
“The Champions League is the most important thing for us – we want these unbelievable moments at Celtic Park”, he told the
“They have to play the game at 12 o’clock in the night their time”. However, with only two competitive games played, Deila is relaxed about Ciftci – who is banned for the first six games of the domestic season after being found guilty of biting Dundee’s Jim McAlister on the final day of last season – and positive about his striking options. “So that’s an advantage for us”. As such, Deila’s ambitions stretch not to touching down in the great football amphitheatres of the Nou Camp or the Bernabeu with this current Celtic team and causing an upset, but rather in replicating the heady drama of European adventure on home soil, of offering the kind of 90 minutes that lives in the memory long after the bare stats have been consigned to the history books. “I’m delighted to see that”. So they have money to invest in the team. “We have to use everything we have to make a good result in the first leg”.
