This Tough Europa League Group Is Just What Celtic Needed.

Last night, we got through a tough tie to get into this morning’s draw.

The “reward” for that was a series of games about as tough as we could have hoped for.

We’re off to Germany, Spain and Hungary.

Two top five countries again, a tricky third team.

There are two ways to look at this; you can be downhearted and say that it’s a tougher draw than we might have got and curse our rotten luck or you can recognise than in many ways it’s the best thing for us.

It’s a test, and this is a young team with a new philosophy.

It needs to be tested.

It needs to be put through its paces by quality sides, in order to grow.

These teams will certainly test us, all of them.

The Germans and the Spanish will bring technical flare and ability. The Hungarians – the club which started last season’s precipitous fall – will provide us with a physical challenge and an opportunity for revenge.

All in all, I’m happy with it.

The draw is sexy enough that it will sell tickets.

It’s precisely what you want from the second tier tournament.

We’ve shown we’re capable of beating technically good teams and so we won’t fear these fixtures at all.

It seems to me that European football has no easy fixtures anymore; certainly we don’t seem to get any easy draws.

None of the sides we’re going to face could be called easy, none of the games could be classed as straightforward.

Let’s have a look at the three sides we’re about to play and what to expect from them.