For Celtic, this cup final is different. It’s a celebration and an exorcism.

Well, this time last year I was in Glasgow watching Celtic lose the Scottish Cup to Aberdeen.

I can still remember how gutted I felt afterwards. So sad. So empty. Now, here we are. Celtic are five-in-a-row champions, and there is only one thing left to replenish the trophy supplies at Paradise. Celtic have to win the Scottish Cup today.

They have to go to Hampden and beat Dunfermline, the club Celtic faced 22 years ago in another Scottish Cup final. This time, I’ll be watching at home in Poland instead of being at Hampden or in a pub in Glasgow.

But I already know the feelings and emotions will be the same.

There’s something funny about football memories, isn’t there? They never leave you properly. They sit in the back of your mind like old ghosts waiting for the right song, the right smell, or the right sight of Hampden’s green grass to come wandering back again.

This time last year, I was there in Glasgow. I can still feel it. I can still see it. The streets buzzing before kick-off. Green and white everywhere. That swagger only Celtic fans carry when silverware is on the line.

We went into that Scottish Cup final against Aberdeen believing history was waiting for us again. Believing the treble was inevitable. Believing Celtic simply did not lose these occasions. Then football did what football sometimes does.

It kicked us square in the chest.

Watching Celtic lose that Scottish Cup final in the 2024/25 season felt surreal. It did not feel real sitting there in the pub amidst stunned Celtic supporters as we missed those crucial penalty kicks. I suddenly felt cold. Not physically cold. Emotionally cold.

When someone in a pub full of Celtic fans decided – inexplicably – to put on Simply The Best to mock the Ibrox club (work that one out; we’ve just lost the final and that’s what the twat wanted to do) James said to me “Time to get out of here.”

The following night, my last in Glasgow on that trip, we went to Grace’s and sat under the gaffer, Brendan Rodgers, and mourned the loss properly.

We went over the game. “If that chance goes in…” “If we defend that better…” “If we just wake up five minutes earlier…”

Football is torture because it gives you endless ways to rewrite the past, even though you cannot change a single second of it.

I was gutted. Absolutely gutted. Not angry. Just hollow.

Because when you travel, when you build your whole weekend around Celtic, when your emotions are tied so tightly to this club, defeats like that hit differently. They don’t just ruin ninety minutes. They sit on your shoulders for days.

You replay the journey there and think how different the journey home will be. The songs before kick-off become silence on the way back. Even Glasgow itself felt different afterwards, as if the city knew Celtic had let one slip away.

I remember thinking then that football is cruel because it never guarantees you tomorrow. You think there will always be another final. Another trophy. Another day out. But every missed cup feels like a small theft of history.

Yet here we are now. A year later, everything feels different. There is a sense of relief about this today, a sense that we’re still floating on last week’s emotion. Celtic are five-in-a-row champions again. Five. In. A. Row.

That alone tells the story of this football club better than any pundit or media narrative ever could. While others shouted, panicked, celebrated draws against us like trophies, or convinced themselves a “power shift” was coming, Celtic simply kept moving forward like Celtic always do. That is what real champions look like.

And although we went there to Hampden on a pure high last year, with a treble in our grasp, it never felt like this. We’re bouncing today. That night in Grace’s doesn’t just seem like a distant dream; this whole season has been a nightmare and last weekend was like coming awake at the end of it with the sun shining in the windows.

Now there is one last piece left to complete the picture. One last trophy sitting there, waiting to be wrapped in green and white ribbons again.

This time, I’ll not be in the city I love. I’ll not be squeezed into a pub somewhere with folk roaring at televisions and pints flying. But the thing about Celtic is this: the emotions never change wherever you are.

That nervous feeling in the stomach before kick-off. The pacing around the room pretending you’re calm when you absolutely are not. The rituals. The superstitions. The refusal to sit comfortably if the game is tight.

Celtic supporters could be in Paradise, in Poland, in Australia or on the moon, and we would still experience these matches exactly the same way.

Because Celtic is emotional inheritance. It lives in you.

I can already feel it building before this final. Excitement. Nerves. Anticipation. But also belief. Real belief. Maybe that is the biggest difference from last year. Last year there was confidence, but there was also tension around the team. This season has felt different. These last few weeks it has felt like Celtic rediscovering that ruthless edge again.

The late goals. The comebacks. The mentality monster performances. The sense that even when things look difficult, Celtic always find a way eventually.

Champions do that.

I genuinely believe Celtic will win this Scottish Cup.

Not because football guarantees anything, because it never does, but because this team feels like a side determined to leave absolutely no doubt about who owns Scottish football. Five in a row already planted the flag.

Winning the Scottish Cup would hammer it into the ground. And aye, maybe it’s my Ginger Witch senses talking again, but I can feel something special around this one.

I think Celtic come flying out of the traps. I think Hampden turns into a wall of noise and green smoke. I think the players remember last year’s hurt too.

People forget footballers carry scars as well. Losing finals stays with them. It burns in them. The best Celtic teams always respond to pain by becoming even more relentless. That is why I think Dunfermline are walking into a storm today.

Because Celtic supporters have unfinished business with this trophy. We want that feeling back. The singing. The tears. The cameras catching supporters embracing strangers after the final whistle. The city turning green long into the night.

Last year I walked away from the pub absolutely gutted, heartbroken and emotionally drained, watching Celtic lose a cup I thought was ours.

This year feels different. This year feels like redemption.

Maybe that is the beauty of supporting Celtic in the first place. Football breaks your heart one season so it can give you moments of absolute joy the next. You carry both forever.

The pain matters because the glory matters.

So today I’ll sit at home with the nerves jangling exactly the same way. I’ll shout at the television like the players can hear me.

I’ll overanalyse every tackle and every missed chance. I’ll probably predict things before they happen like the daft ginger witch I apparently am.

But deep down? I think Celtic finish the job.

Five-in-a-row champions already.

By tonight, hopefully, Scottish Cup winners too.

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