Neil Lennon ready to take on Europe’s elite

NEIL LENNON may be rightly determined that Celtic do not get carried away by their progress to today’s Champions League play-off round draw, but that doesn’t mean he wants his players to keep their feet on the ground.

On the contrary, Lennon hopes to clock up as many air miles as possible with his squad this season. Not long after touching down at Glasgow Airport on their return from Helsinki in the small hours of yesterday morning, Celtic were on their travels again as they headed to Philadelphia for tomorrow’s high profile friendly match against Real Madrid.

Lennon’s hopes of mixing it for real with teams of the Spanish champions’ calibre in Europe’s elite club competition over the next few months will come into sharper focus at 11am today when they are paired with one of five possible opponents in the last qualifying hurdle before the group stage.

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By completing a 4-1 aggregate victory over HJK Helsinki in Finland on Wednesday night, Celtic guaranteed that the minimum they will achieve is Europa League group stage football should they lose their Champions League play-off tie.

But Lennon will be fired by a renewed sense of optimism that participation in the premier tournament is firmly within Celtic’s reach for the first time in four years. As a seeded club in today’s draw, the Scottish champions will start as favourites against whichever of the five unseeded teams they face.

The Celtic manager will probably hope to avoid CFR Cluj, the Romanian champions and highest ranked of the non-seeds. Bankrolled by local tycoon Arpad Paszkany, the club from Transylvania have been catapulted from domestic obscurity to European prominence since his takeover ten years ago and have reached the group stage of the Champions League twice in the last four seasons. They defeated Slovakian champions Slovan Liberec home and away in the third qualifying round and have a squad laced with Brazilian and Portuguese players.

From a logistical point of view, Celtic would welcome being drawn against Swedish champions Helsingborgs. As well as the relative ease of travel involved, Henrik Larsson’s home town club would generally be regarded to be around the same level of ability as the HJK Helsinki side Celtic have just overcome.

Helsingborgs are struggling to defend their domestic title, lying in sixth place in the table and having replaced coach Conny Karlsson with former Norwegian national team boss Age Hareide in June. But they did complete an eye-catching 6-1 aggregate defeat of Polish champions Slask Wroclaw in the third qualifying round which would command Lennon’s respect.

The potential threat which Maribor, the third-highest ranked of the non-seeds, could pose will not be underestimated given the Slovenian champions’ recent record against Scottish opposition. They defeated Rangers in the Europa League play-off round last season and eliminated Hibs from the same tournament in the third qualifying round the previous year. However, they failed to win a single match in the Europa League group stage last year and Celtic would be strongly fancied to beat them.

The rise of Cypriot club football in recent years, highlighted by APOEL Nicosia’s remarkable run to the quarter-finals of the Champions League, means the Mediterranean island’s current champions, AEL Limassol, would be treated warily by Celtic. Comfortable winners over Linfield in the second qualifying round, AEL upset the seedings in the third qualifying round with a pair of 1-0 wins over Serbian champions Partizan Belgrade.

The lowest ranked of the five teams Celtic could face are also the least well known. But Hapoel Kiryat Shmona, from the most northern city in Israel, are determined that their meteoric rise since being formed just 12 years ago continues by reaching the Champions League group stage at the first attempt. Last season, they became the first club from outside Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Haifa to win the Israeli title and were comfortable 6-2 aggregate victors over Neftchi Baku of Azerbaijan in the third qualifying round.

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As he waits for news of the draw at Celtic’s hotel in Philadelphia today, however, Lennon will be far more relaxed than he was in advance of the HJK Helsinki tie which he freely admitted on Wednesday night had caused him considerable mental torment.

By ensuring Celtic will play European football of some kind until December at least, Lennon has both cleared a major personal hurdle and also strengthened his hand in terms of potential transfer market activity over the next three weeks. He is keen to make new recruits, with central defence and the striking department his priorities. Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell is now in a position to assist Lennon and balance the potential sale of players such as Ki Sung Yueng and Gary Hooper, both coveted by English Premier League clubs, with the level of new signings which will allow the Scottish champions to compete credibly in either the Champions League or Europa League over the coming months.