Opinion

Schadenfreude and football go together like a double cheeseburger and large fries. You know it’s wrong but damn it feels so right.

Brendan Rodgers is discovering what it feels like to become a victim of his own success. The exceptional achievements of his first two seasons as Celtic manager, wholly unprecedented in the history of Scottish football, mean even the slightest hint of regression brings the most intense scrutiny.

Rangers are in Slovenia for the second leg of their Europa League third-round qualifier against Maribor.

Celtic’s transfer activity under Brendan Rodgers has come under much debate in recent weeks. Joel Sked rates the 17 signings made under the Northern Irishman out of ten.

Celtic will not be playing in the Champions League group stages for the third season in a row after exiting the competition at the third qualifying round stage following a 3-2 aggregate defeat to Greek side AEK Athens.

W  hile Celtic were engaged in fierce Champions League action last night in Athens, Scott Allan was at home in Glasgow, kicking his heels and perhaps wondering how he can reinvent himself as a centre-half.

Celtic’s porous defending offers up an easy narrative about the club’s Champions League hopes evaporating in Athens last night. On BT Sport, pundit Chris Sutton wasn’t going to pass up the open goals the situation threw up – even allowing for a spirited late rally that almost allowed them to recover a two-goal deficit after a headed strike by substitute Scott Sinclair made it 2-1 in the 77th minute.

Ratings out of ten for every Celtic player as the Hoops exited the Champions League qualifying rounds, losing 2-1 to AEK Athens in Greece and 3-2 on aggregate.

I’m almost embarrassed to admit it but feel I have to: I didn’t see a single shot hit in the US PGA Championship, the event’s 100th staging, at Bellerive Country Club in St Louis. And, by the sounds of things, I wasn’t alone.

Craig Fowler reviews the weekend’s action from the Scottish top flight.

It certainly wasn’t the highlight of a packed programme of top-class summer golf in Scotland but, at the same time, the inaugural European Team Championships was a lot better than many people, this correspondent included, expected.

We’ll be remembering this fabulously long, hot summer for decades to come. And we’ll also be waxing nostalgic about Russia’s World Cup, the best-ever if you were too young for 1970, packed with great games, big shocks, thrilling climaxes – and, most surprising of all, England didn’t stink the place out. So spare a thought for Steven Gerrard who can’t have got much of a suntan, who can’t have seen many of the Three Lions’ games in their charge to the semi-finals, and who couldn’t be in a TV studio this time, punditising and to-be-fairing and jumping up and down behind the glass when ruthless baby’s candy thief Harry Kane stuck out a cynical heel to re-route a team-mate’s shot and claim his hat-trick against the mighty Panama.

Andy Harrow looks back at Hearts’ impressive early season victory over Celtic at Tynecastle.

L einster announced this week that Johnny Sexton is the new club 
captain, taking over from Isa Nacewa who has retired. In one sense this wasn’t surprising. Sexton is perhaps the most necessary player for both Leinster and Ireland. When he goes well, they go well. Moreover it is quite possible that he would have been disappointed, even disgruntled, if the captaincy had gone to someone else.

On Thursday evening the transfer window closed in England at 5pm BST before the start of the English league season and the change will have ramifications for Scotland.

After losing out on the transfer of John McGinn, Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers warned that he’ll quit the club if he feels he’s taken them as far as he can go.

Scottish football is recovering. It may not be what it once was in terms of stature, at least compared with other leagues around Europe, but it at least seems that we’ve hit our nadir and are on the way back up.