Celtic Diary Monday June 22: Moravcik Stunner! And A Trip To Iceland

So we’re off to Iceland again. Stjarnen it is, with their fishy celebrations;

We welcome @celticfc to Iceland #WeLoveScotland #ChampionsLeague

Stjarnan F.C. (English: Star F.C.) is an Icelandic sports club specialising in football, located in Garðabær, which currently plays inÚrvalsdeild, the top league in Iceland. They won the promotion from the 1. deild karla in 2008. Stjarnan won the Úrvalsdeild for the first time in 2014. In the 2014-15 Europa League, they reached the play-off rounds after beating Scottish club Motherwell and Polish team Lech Poznań, before Italian giants Inter Milan denied them a place in the group stages.

The club gained worldwide fame when their elaborate goal celebrations, including highly choreographed depictions of landing a fish, diving, a human toilet, a human bicycle, and a Rambo shooting spree, were published widely across the Internet and football television shows.^[1]  

They beat Motherwell last year, as well as Bangor City and Lech Poznan, so cannot be taken lightly, and by a strange coincidence, their run ended at the hands of Inter Milan as well…

Season	Competition	Round	Opponent	Home	Away	Aggregate
2014–15	UEFA Europa League	1Q	Bangor City	4–0	4–0	8–0
		2Q	Motherwell	3–2 (aet)	2–2	5–4
		3Q	Lech Poznań	1–0	0–0	1–0
		PO	Internazionale	0–3	0–6	0–9
2015–16	UEFA Champions League	2Q

A Rambo shooting spree. The Offensive Behaviour act would see us all in jail if we tried that.

The press campaign to get right behind Celtic in the champions league campaign began yesterday. Aiden Smith, writing in the Scotsman, presumably in the hope no-one would see it, had a little pop at john collins, who, rightly, pointed out how unfair it was that a seasoned European club like Celtic should have to start so early;

 the assistant manager does neither himself nor Celtic any favours with his comments about the rest of Scottish football. He is frustrated by these clubs’ failures in Euro competition because of the knock-on effect for the title-holders of a trickier pathway to exciting ties and a big moneypot. In so doing, though, Collins comes across as arrogant, with a misplaced sense of entitlement.

Celtic having to negotiate three qualifying rounds was “100 per cent unfair,” he said.

“We have been kind of punished for that, which is unfair, when you consider some of the special nights Celtic have had in the Champions League.”

Nothing wrong with that. It’s true. And the thing is, it won’t change until at least another Scottish club has a good run through the group stages.

Now, technically he’s right. Scotland’s co-efficient ranking has plummeted, meaning everyone has to jump through more hoops, including the Hoops. And you can have sympathy for Celtic for having to play more games to qualify, but only up to a point.

Collins sounds irritated, as if he doesn’t think Scotland’s other Euro candidates are pulling their weight and doing enough. The sub-text is they’re not doing enough to help Celtic get into the groups and look glamorous. 

It’s got nothing to do with helping Celtic. It’s to do with the system.

If the smaller teams without Celtic’s resources don’t do as well as the champs in reaching the dizzy heights of a sneaked victory over Barcelona on a rare off-night for the best team in the world, then guess what? Maybe it’s because they don’t have Celtic’s resources.

No. It’s because they have to play against higher seeded teams in the later rounds, second and third placed teams from the wealthier leagues. It’s a fault of the system, which can only be fought by all the clubs doing well, and a little support for the flagship club wouldn’t go amiss. you’ll notice he doesn;t mention the cash bonuses earned for the other clubs when we do well.

Instead, he mentions a “sneaky ” win over Barcelona, which raised the profile and morale of the game, but hey, ho, let kick the Celts in the teeth anyway.

 Within the article is actually the single biggest piece of evidence that there is an agenda amongst a certain section of the lamb guzzlers,

Celtic regularly moan about the lack of competition domestically, almost forgetting how often they’ve weakened the other teams. 

Not that often, actually. Armstrong and Mackay Steven are the first major domestic signings since Scott Brown.

Then again, we should maybe have built three teams.. that could work.

One for Europe, one for the league, and one for the cups.

Anyhoo, that’s me Back from a quick sortie in Dunoon to make sure it’s still raining and climate change hasn’t reached the west coast yet, a glance at the diary replies from Friday unearthed a startling piece of news…..

Tom Campbell, who knows a thing or two about the history, wrote this..

Every report says that Celtic paid between £300,000 and £350,000 for Lubo. Simply not true. Celtic paid circa £150,000 and I was told that by two of the men who brokered the deal, and who witnessed the actual transfer. Where did the ‘inflated’ sum come from? Celtic were afraid of being mocked further for ‘a biscuit-tin mentality’ that they allowed the larger sum to be leaked.

What a bargain he would have been at any price! 

Dr Jo Venglos, if he’s still in good shape, should be invited back to Celtic Park to be given a big thank you.

It’s also indicative of lazy journalism in scotland and a little disappointing that Hugh Keevins and Jim Traynor weren’t told the correct amount. Although it’s difficult to hold them in even less stead, they could have climbed even higher on their little pedestal, and thus fallen even further.

Speaking of Dunoon, I had packed what i thought was enough clothes for the weekend, but to my horror whilst on the train realised that i had forgotten underwear and socks, so i called into a shop in the main street to replenish supplies. Three pairs of each ? £18.

Fortunately, in order to avoid wrapping it round my leg till I got home, a wee shop across the road did the same deal for £7, but it put me off the idea of getting a taxi.

So I waited for a bus instead, out to Sandbank, but they only run every couple of days, so I walked a couple of miles to Sandbank, and spent the rest of the weekend reading a Jimmy Johnstone book and crying out in pain at irregular intervals.

I did get to read the Sunday Post for the first time in many years, but didn’t bother with the sports bit, as they have a column by Gordon smith, with the tag line “the man in the know ” which cast a shred of doubt about the quality of the rest of the stories.

The train back from Gourock offered a pleasant surprise though, as i was wearing my Lennon CSC t shirt, and a couple noticed the badge, which meant I spent the time talking about football with Peter and Anne from Paisley, where we largely agreed that Ronny was great, we’d win the big cup again in 2017, and the huns were still deid.

So, anything happen while I was away ?

It looks like the search for a striker with the name Ice Cream will be stepped up, regardless of quality, as Celtic appear to be getting closer to signing Jelle Vossen, the Genk striker who spent last year on loan at Middlesborough, which is possibly the only place in Europe from where you could take someone to Glasgow and they’d think they were moving to Monte Carlo.

He told reporters;

“Celtic is a club I admire — it is a big and great club. When I was younger, I watched a lot of their games in the Champions League.

“Celtic have had great teams and some Belgian players have been over there already. 

“We just have to wait and see what happens and what the future will bring. I will talk to Genk in the coming days.” 

Like you , I held my breath and waited, but he didn’t mention getting this for Christmas ..which was a relief.

There’s a you tube video of him showing his goals from last season, and he does appear to have a knack of being in the right place at the right time, and he looks strong enough. What sticks out though, is the mention of Belgian players having been at Celtic before, such as Valgaeren and Denaayer, and of course Boyata is already there..

 By the way, Denaayer has been offered a new five year deal at Manchester city, after coming from obscurity in the reserves to the Belgian international side within twelve months. Good luck to him.

 We may rue having to let him go, but it may yet see a horde of promising youngsters taking a lot more notice of an offer from Celtic if they want to improve themselves, and of course the next time, they will be our players.

Theres a host of other names on the “radar ” as desperate hacks try to find stories during the close season, but the one that should make you chuckle is the “battle ” for Scott Allen, the promising young Hibernian midfielder.

Armed with his warchest, Weir and Warburton, the latest music hall act charged with leading Scotland newest club to the highest level, are making cooing noises, but it appears, presumably for a laugh, Celtic are interested as well.

With the hoops interest now cooled in Danny Wilson,  the media assumes means he will join the Ibrox side ( he’s apparently been offered £8,000 a week, and is thinking about it. Not the size of the wage, but the likelihood of it going into his bank every month.- and there is a  green light for W and W to swoop, although the embarrassment of snapping up someone Celtic didn’t want may be a problem for their fans, still entrenched in seventeenth century superiority.

 Not as much as it would upset them if Celtic signed Allen, and then loaned him back to Hibs.

 The other two more frequently mentioned names are Milan djuric, a 6 foot 6 striker at Cesena, who has old his club he would like to go to Celtic, and left back Marcel Halstenburg, of Celtic’s cousins St. Pauli, with Celtic apparently preparing a second bid for the player.

 Other than that, no-one else has mentioned Nadir Ciftci, Adam Rooney or Hans Vickic again, which is a relief.

A result that caught the eye yesterday was Celtics Ladies team, who scraped into the third round of the cup;

Ruesha Littlejohn scored an incredible eight goals, and that has to be worth a round of applause.

she’s the one on the right. The other is Chloe Craig.

Above we mentioned the way in which the MSM are behind Celtic, and it’s sickening. Part of the reason there’s no money in the Scottish game is because those in a position to talk it up talk it down.

Well, not always, just lately. See if you can spot the connection…

Grilled ? Well, if you count “what the fuck did you go there for ? ” , I suppose.

Has King offered his shares to Ashley ?

Well, it’s not like he can sell them on the open exchange. Phil MacGhiollabhan is asking if it’s true that the two men met when everyone else was watching the EGM….

And if they can’t get a good story, then a negative story about others should suffice.

This is a must read. Something that doesn’t come along very often.

It tells you how they do it. Or how they did it, depending on how you look at it.

The BBC, Rangers, and an agenda

That was muirton Park in Fridays picture.

And it’s a picture quiz today…

Oh, wait, the answer is in the picture.

So we’ll do a caption competition instead.