Carl Starfelt was crushed as injury threatened to completely deny him his big Champions League chance. But the Swedish star finally got back in time for an outing against the mighty Real Madrid.
And the centre-back is now fixated on doing the business domestically again to get back in among Europe’s elite having tasted the rarefied air for a first time in the Bernabeu. Starfelt returned from a two-month long absence to face the kings of the continent in Celtic ’s final game in Group F.
For the first five matches of the section, he’d been painfully stuck on the sidelines. When injury struck during a 4-0 win over Rangers at the start of September – just three days before the first meeting with the Spanish superstars – Starfelt believed his big chance to play in the competition this season may have disappeared. He said: “The timing of my injury was awful because I, basically, missed a full Champions League campaign. I got injured three days before the first game against Real Madrid against Rangers. That was a really hard moment for me personally.
