Crazy Ball – The draw for the Europa League on Friday (2/10) night gave AC Milan a nightmare. The Rossoneri are in a group with some of the scariest teams on the European scene. The fate of Stefano Pioli’s men will probably end at the group stage.
AC Milan made their way through to the group stage of the Europa League, winning on penalties 8-9 after the score stayed 2-2 for 120 minutes on Friday (2/10) at dawn against Portugal’s Rio Ave in the third qualifying round. And look at the prizes they got on the draw for the Europa League: they are in a group with Celtic, Sparta Praga and Lille in group hell, Group H.
Lille, a club from the French League, come from Pot 4, the most underdog pot. But they’re shopping a lot this summer.
Meanwhile, the top team in Group H of the Europa League is Celtic, which has a UEFA coefficient of 34,000, slightly behind LaLiga’s Athletic Bilbao with 36,000 and Russia’s FC Krasnodar with 35,500. This season the Scottish team’s adventure in the Champions League was stopped in the second qualifying round by the Hungarian team, Ferencvaros.
But in the past Celtic has been the European champion (1967) and European runner-up (1970). Its golden age has passed with the next time they recorded a decent achievement on the continent blue scene being second in the UEFA Cup in 2003.
Celtic’s record against Milan is not very convincing, with only one win, three draws and six defeats against the Rossoneri in all European competitions. However, this Scottish club has won twice over Juventus and twice over Lazio, in addition to winning once over Borussia Dortmund and three times over Liverpool.
Meanwhile AC Sparta Praga is a team that has beaten Inter Milan and Napoli in the past, several years ago.
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