Foreign fields await for Celtic

CELTIC have been returned to the status they were before Martin O'Neill set to work exactly a decade ago.

Enduring a longest separation from the title since the late 1990s, attendance figures have dipped to the levels of that era while their European standing is on a dramatic downward curve for the first time in ten years.

Neil Lennon and his coaching team might well be able to make a difference where league crowns and crowds are concerned. Continental status could be an intractable problem, however. On Friday, Celtic will discover who, from a daunting list comprising Zenit St Petersburg, Ajax, Fenerbahce, Dinamo Kiev and Sporting Braga, they will face in the third qualifying round of the Champions League. These ties will be played on July 28-29 and August 3-4 and supposedly represent the less arduous assignment ahead of such as Tottenham Hostpur, Seville and Werder Bremen entering for the group stage shakedown.

The prospects for a Celtic squad under reconstruction would appear limited. Especially when you consider that the sparkling 2-0 win away to Dinamo Moscow in the third round Champions League qualifier last year is not only their one away win in Europe in almost seven years but also their one meaningful win in cross-border competition over the past two-and-a-half years.

To gain a berth in the Champions League group stage that Arsenal effortlessly denied them last year will take the sort of herculean effort, and change-all result, they achieved under O'Neill against Ajax in Amsterdam in August 2001. The 3-1 victory was, till then, their best showing on the continental stage since the Jock Stein era. Everything that followed in Europe for Celtic - their ability to scalp the biggest names at home at the highest level, their motoring up the European rankings, the UEFA Cup final appearance and qualification for the latter stages of the Champions League - can be traced to the outcome in Holland.

Current assistant manager Johan Mjallby remembers well the ousting of Ajax, the Swede then a pivot in the club's three-man defence. He is in no doubt as to its significance, his stand-out memory of the Amsterdam first leg the crowning performance of his Celtic career from Dutch winger Bobby Petta. "We knew it was a magnificent result and that it would be very hard for them to come to Parkhead, where we were very strong. Then we lost and they played us off the park (for a 1-0 win]! Yet, from then on we felt we were a strong side, though maybe not away from home.

But that was the turning point, where we knew our team had the chance to get results and compete against good teams."

To the question of whether the Champions League is a realistic goal for this season, Mjallby answers that "we have to aim for it". "We don't really know what players we are going to get in so it is difficult to say if we are going to be a success," he says. Midfielders Joe Ledley and Jimmy Bullard seem set to join Cha Du-ri and Charlie Mulgrew as Celtic's summer acquisitions before the club this week head to the United States for a hectic ten-day, four-game trip. On Thursday they play Philadelphia Union. Two days later they face Manchester United in Toronto and the very next day will be on the opposite seaboard for a meeting with Seattle Sounders.

"The Manchester United game is a great test," Mjallby says. "You can get a false impression when it comes to pre-season games, there's no doubt about that. But United have so much quality that it's a great game for us to have a look at them.

"These games are the chance to watch the players in match situations. It's hard to judge them when they are training. I want them to come up against teams they are not used to."

That will happen in a couple of weeks with the Champions League qualifiers. Mjallby thinks other teams won't particularly fancy facing Celtic, but that restoring a genuine "fear factor" is one task for the new management team.

He doesn't have a fear of long flights - his reasons for preferring Ajax and surprise Portuguese league runners-up Braga to Russians Zenit, Ukrainians Kiev or Turkish side Fenerbahce are footballing. "We probably know a wee bit more about how they will set up tactically. The east European teams will be different.

"It doesn't really matter who we get, we have to believe we can get through and do something in Europe."

Celtic's possible opponents:

ZENIT ST PETERSBURG

They may have lost Andrei Arshavin and Anatoliy Tymoschuk but many of the others from the team that beat Rangers in the UEFA Cup final two years ago remain and are prospering. Zenit currently lead the Russian Premier League and are unbeaten after 11 games. Their impressive form owes much to Roma coach Luciano Spalletti, who arrived last December.

AJAX

A second-half-of the season charge almost allowed Martin Jol's Ajax to usurp long-time leaders Twente in the Dutch league. Key to a return to free-scoring football was Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez, who netted 49 across all competitions. Holding on to their 25-year-old captain is expected to prove impossible following his exploits in the World Cup.

FENERBAHCE

Losing their title on the last day to Bursaspor condemned the Istanbul team to a Champions League qualifier and accounted for Celtic's unseeded status, which would have been secured had the lowered ranked Bursaspor stayed second. Among a smattering of imports are Uruguayan captain Diego Lugano, Brazilian Alex and Croatian Miroslav Stoch, signed last month from Chelsea in a €5.5m deal.

DINAMO KIEV

Although they finished bottom of their Champions League group containing both Inter and Barcelona last season, they managed a highly credible 2-2 draw with the eventual winners in Milan. Their squad includes a clutch of uncapped young Brazilians.

SPORTING BRAGA

Braga were the revelation of the Portuguese league, a second place finish the highest in their history - they were only pipped on the last day by Benfica. Their only honour in the past 44 years is the 2008, and last, Intertoto Cup - and even then they were "declared" winners because they progressed further in the UEFA Cup than any of the other teams entering it by the Intertoto route.z