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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Ewan Paton

What Celtic need to do to qualify for Champions League knockouts

Celtic are now just potentially two wins away from securing their passage to the knockout rounds of the Champions League.

The Scottish Premiership champions are up to four points in the new-look league phase of UEFA's top club competition, following their 0-0 stalemate in Bergamo against Atalanta this evening.

It was a marked improvement from Brendan Rodgers and his team for an away tie in Europe, especially given the 7-1 hammering dished out by Borussia Dortmund last time out.

The result places the Hoops in a tasty position with five league phase ties remaining - with the next two at home to RB Leipzig and Club Brugge.

And according to Scotland's Coefficient on social media site X, Celtic are just two victories away from qualifying for the highly-sought after knockout rounds.

Writing on the site, the account posted: "Well that was unexpected! A fantastic result for Celtic, the 0-0 draw away to Atalanta puts them on  four points in the Champions League table after 3 games!


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"Two more wins from the remaining five games will now secure qualification - their next two are at home (Leipzig  & Brugge) followed by Zagreb  away then Young Boys at home. They end the campaign at Villa Park at the end of January

"0.2 points added to Scotland's Coefficient (taking our season total to 3.6pts) and another €700,000 added to Celtic's prize money, taking their earnings to almost €35m before ticket sales

"It was their first away clean sheet in the Champions League in 7 years (0-3 Vs Anderlecht in 2017) when Rodgers' Celtic finished 3rd in the group behind PSG and Bayern Munich."

So, another two wins would see the Hoops finish the league phase on 10 points. 

At the very least, it'll guarantee them a play-off spot, but all connected to the club will be hopeful it secures automatic passage to the next round.

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