Imagine what it must be like to be a Sevconut tonight, knowing that tomorrow night they might be praying that Celtic secures a double treble at the end of the season? Because that is the scenario – the nightmare scenario – that now faces their club.
Tomorrow, we should secure our place alongside the Steelmen in this year’s competition closer. It will be a fitting end to the second Brendan Rodgers season. Sevco would, under nearly all circumstances, want Motherwell to win that.
Except this season. Except in the current scenario.
Because Sevco is locked in a deathly battle for the second and third spots in the league and they face a ghastly final five fixtures, including visits to Celtic Park and games at Pittodrie and Easter Road. If they slip up, if they don’t manage to secure third, if they drop into fourth, then the European place for that will be theirs except in one dire event.
That event is Motherwell triumphing in the Scottish Cup.
Because then the Fir Park club would secure the last European place instead of them.
A lot has to happen before then; hapless Aberdeen have to get their act together and Hibs need to keep on keeping on, but it’s not impossible and that’s what scares the Sevco high command so. We also have to do the job tomorrow and reach the final.
But Sevco is now in a perilous position where their supporters are facing what might be the most dreadful choice they’ve ever had; going into cup final day they might well find themselves forced to wish for Celtic to make history and secure the double treble, just to qualify for the European football that is all that’s keeping on the lights over there.
I’ve already read a comment on one Celtic forum from a fan who says he would be willing to trade away a win that day to keep them out of European competition; that isn’t a minority opinion as much as it’s just an idiot opinion. The choice isn’t any choice at all; I want Celtic to complete the grand slam for the second year in a row.
But to know that on that day Sevco fans might be forced to cheer us on, or to forfeit their right to European football just to see us fail … that’s just too bloody good to be true. And although a lot of things do have to fall just-so for it to happen, the fact it is even possible will be just another reason for sleepless nights from those in the Blue Room.
Life’s a bitch for them right now, isn’t it?
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