Celtic face the prospect of having to negotiate a potentially tricky second round qualifying Champions League tie as they square off against Hungarian champions Ferencvaros on Wednesday evening.
The Budapest outfit beat Swedish Allsvenskan winners Djurgardens IF 2-0 to set up this tie against the Hoops. They comfortably won the Hungarian league last season, finishing 13 points ahead of their nearest rivals Fehervar.
Ferencvaros were also impressive in the Europa League last season, and their group stage form in 2019/20 is one of the reasons Celtic will not be taking them lightly. Placed in a group alongside Espanyol, CSKA Moscow and Ludogorets, Ferencvaros finished third, and were in contention to progress until the final round of games. They lost only once in the group, beat CSKA in Moscow and drew with Espanyol home and away.
Last year, Ferencvaros reached the third qualifying round of the Champions League, beating Ludogorets and Valletta before falling to Dinamo Zagreb. Celtic also exited the competition at the same stage, beaten by Romanian outfit CFR Cluj.
Ferencvaros are managed by Serhiy Rebrov, the former Ukrainian striker who played for both Tottenham and West Ham. He took charge of the club in August 2018 and has delivered back to back league titles for the club- they emerged top of both the 2018/19 and 2019/20 editiosn of the Hungarian league.
While fans will not be allowed inside the stadium, Celtic will have the advantage of playing at home, and the folks at VulkanBet have the Hoops as firm favourites for this clash. This will only be Ferencvaros’ third European game against Scottish opposition and they’ve had mixed success- they lost to Rangers six decades ago, but beat Hearts at Murrayfield sixteen years ago.
Kenyan born Norwegian striker Tokmac Nguen has been in hot form for Ferencvaros, and Celtic would’ve identified him as player they need to nullify. The 26-year-old scored in his side’s league opener against MTK and followed it up with a brace against Djurgardens.
Celtic have had a slightly sluggish start to the new Scottish league season- they’re currently fourth in the table with 7 points, although they do have two games in hand. They were given a good run for their money by Dundee United over the weekend, and only prevailed thanks to a late goal on debut from Swiss striker Alban Ajeti.
Neil Lennon’s side demolished Icelandic outfit KR 6-0 in the first qualifying round, with Mohamed Elyounoussi grabbing a brace for the home side. Christopher Jullien, Greg Taylor and Odsonne Edouard were also on target for the Scottish champions, with KR defender Arnor Aoalsteinsson also scoring an own goal.
This being a one-off game means that Celtic will have to be focused from the word go. They have suffered some embarrassing defeats this decade, but none so early in this competition, and will like to keep that record intact. One off games certainly have the potential for upsets- you only need to look at City v Lyon from earlier this month, and Celtic will do well to see off the Hungarian champions here.
The referee for this game- Allard Lindhout is a bit of an unknown quantity. Neither side has been refereed by him before, and neither has he been in charge for any games involving Scottish or Hungarian clubs in the past.