Celtic suffered a devastating 7-1 defeat against Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday night (October 1) in the UEFA Champions League – but the result hasn't impacted Scotland's European coefficient rankings.
That's according to the eponymous Scotland's Coefficient X account (formerly Twitter), which highlights the fact two of Scotland's national ranking rivals, Austria and Switzerland, suffered heavy defeats too.
Salzburg lost 4-0 to Brest, while Young Boys were beaten 5-0 by Barcelona.
"14 games of interest over the next 48 hours – most importantly obviously are the Hearts and Rangers fixtures," read a message posted on Tuesday night following Celtic's comprehensive defeat. "Two victories would be fantastic, but both difficult games."
"We could still rise in the rankings this week, for the first time this season - and 14th is the highest we can mathematically end the week."
🙏 In better news, we didn't fall any further behind anyone in the rankings. ✅ We had two rivals playing tonight who both also got pumped (Salzburg🇦🇹 lost 4-0 & Young Boys🇨🇭 lost 5-0) 🤞 14 games of interest over the next 48 hours - most importantly obviously are the Hearts &… https://t.co/xPujqTrw2d pic.twitter.com/Zkypt1qLgT
— Scotland’s Coefficient (@scotlandscoeff1) October 1, 2024
In the aftermath of the 7-1 loss, Brendan Rodgers said he was proud of his players' second-half performance, while former manager and player Neil Lennon suggested the Scottish champions had been too nice on the night.
Lennon said: "I didn't expect them to win. I expected them to give a good account of themselves given the form they were in.
"They let the game get away from them. They were passive, far too passive with passing, didn't do the dirty business of the game well enough, weren't physical enough, too nice and they didn't turn Dortmund at all.
"They kept playing the same way. The results were the same - goal against, goal against, goal against. Eventually, when the game got to 3-1 I am expecting someone to get grip of the team and say 'ok, let's have 5-10 minutes in their half, let's get Maeda into it, let's turn them, let's get a corner or a throw' - there was none of that.
"They have got to learn quickly. Celtic were exposed tonight. They have got to say 'we can't do this away from home against top teams, we have to find another way of playing at times.'"
