Arsenal and Celtic play a two-legged qualifying play-off because of Platini's new reforms. Starting this season, the Champions Cup qualification system is divided into the strong non-championship group and the weak national champion group, with five places in each group, and the final 10 teams will participate in the group stage draw ceremony in Monaco on August 27, and the other 10 eliminated teams will participate in the group stage of the Europa League Cup, which is restructured from the UEFA Cup.

In the powerhouse non-championship group, 15 teams from the top leagues compete for five places. Ten of these teams competed directly in the third round, and five teams were decided in the middle of the week, with a total of 10 teams from Arsenal, Lyon, Stuttgart, Fiorentina and Atletico Madrid entering the fourth round of the play-off draw.

According to the team's UEFA points, the top 5 (Arsenal, Lyon, Sporting Lisbon, Panathinaikos, Stuttgart) are seeded, and the bottom 5 (Fiorentina, Atletico Madrid, Celtic, Anderlecht, Timisoara) are unseeded teams, and the seeded teams and unseeded teams will be drawn to determine the top 32 of the Champions League group stage.

In the Champions Group of Weaker Countries, the champions from the lower-ranked leagues share the other five places after four rounds. After the first three rounds of competition, 10 teams were selected, and they were also divided into two groups according to the team's UEFA points. The seeded teams include Olympiacos (Greece), Copenhagen (Denmark), Sofia Levski (Bulgaria), Maccabi Haifa (Israel), Zurich (Switzerland); The unseeded teams are Salzburg (Austria), Apoel (Cyprus), Ventspils (Latvia), Debrecen Railways (Hungary) and Tiraspol Sharif (Moldova).

Among the opponents that Arsenal may encounter, Celtic is not the strongest, nor the weakest, even if Celtic has a bit of a proud history, but in the face of Arsenal's strong strength, this record does not reassure the Celtic generals, especially after Arsenal frantically slaughtered Everton, the fifth place in the Premier League last season, there is panic in the Celtic team.

In this regard, Celtic coach Tony ? In an interview with UEFA's official website, Mowbray said helplessly: "We don't have any illusions, we know that there are many world-class players in the Arsenal team, Li Huan can buy all our players for half the price, Fabregas is also a world-class star, Barcelona wants to pay 40 million pounds to buy him." But we're still looking forward to it. ”

However, Toni Mowbray then started to boost his team's morale, "Arsenal's possession and penetration are exceptional, but we will do our best to win the game." We lost away to a good team (Dynamo Moscow) and turned it around at home, at Celtic Park we are a strong team and we can upset any opponent. The game can be tense and intense, so let's all look forward to a great civil war in English football. Every team that can beat Arsenal has its own way of dealing with it, I'm not going to emulate them, we have our own strategy. ”

Fabregas's team-mate at Barcelona's youth team, Crozas, who is now a midfielder for Celtic, said of the game: "Arsenal have a very high level of competition and are stronger than us, and in addition to Seske and Li Huan, they have a lot of players who can decide the game and can take advantage of every mistake the opponent makes in the game. So we have to be extra careful to avoid making mistakes in the game, but we don't have a chance and if we play at our level we have the ability to get to the group stage and that's our main goal at this stage of the season. ”

Arsene Wenger was cautious in his remarks against an opponent he had never met, "I always thought we were under a lot of pressure because there were too many games. On the other hand, we also expect this kind of pressure, because then we can show the world whether we are good or not. I know we're going to be respected playing against a team like Celtic because a lot of teams are going to get stuck here. Scotland are always passionate about football, we have visited many places in Europe that love football, and we know from experience that our performance is the most important thing. It would be very powerful for us if we could ignore the atmosphere and the only way to do that was to keep our feet on the ground and play. ”

The heart of the midfield, captain Cesc Fabregas, also spoke out before the game, and he was as cautious as his mentor: "The Champions League is very important for us and we need to be positive. The most important thing is that we have a fighting spirit and a strong belief in the quality of the team. Now everybody in the squad can score and everybody wants to be involved in the attack, so if we can play like we did at Goodison Park, there's no doubt we're going to be in the group stage. ”

The coach and captain of Arsenal are both cautious and serious people, and their words are somewhat inconsistent with the nickname of the Arsenal team, and Li Huan, who has just joined, obviously has a very different style from Wenger and Fabregas. When he went to "Sky Sports" to do a show, Li Huan talked about his views on this game.

"No matter who the opponent is, no matter how terrible Celtic's home stadium is, all I can say is that we can win and qualify because our goal is to win the title and if we have to worry about the qualifiers, what qualifications do we have to compete with other teams for the title.

Celtic have played really well before, they have a certain quality, they have beaten Manchester United at Celtic Park, they have beaten AC Milan, but we are in the quarterfinals last season, we have reached the Champions League finals for 11 consecutive years, we have reached the quarterfinals many times, and even the final, we should not be presumptuous, no matter what other people say, what they think, I have to repeat again, we will win, and it will be beautiful, our goal is the final, if we don't step into the Bernabeu, we will fail. ”

Arsenal's new signing Vermaelen, who is only 1.8m tall, froze the air bully, who was a head taller than him, and scored the opponent's goal with a header to deliver a satisfactory debut answer. The Belgian also supports Li's sentiments, "We had to face intense physical confrontations and try to play the style we are good at. Celtic have a lot of good attacking players, some of them are tall and have excellent physical ability, but I joined Arsenal to play in the Champions League, every player is eager to participate in this competition, and the Champions League means a lot to the club, and any club that spends more than 100 million euros on reinforcements will aim to win the title, and we are no exception. I'm sure we'll beat them away from home. ”

In terms of strength, Celtic can be regarded as a mid-to-lower club in the Premier League at best, not much different from teams like Sunderland and Wigan. Therefore, the British media also believe that as long as Arsenal can withstand the frenetic and terrifying atmosphere created by the team's fans at home, there is no problem in qualifying.

The British media are still dissatisfied with Platini's new policy, believing that he has been trying to suppress the Premier League, for example, before the Champions League has even begun, it is really a loss for the Champions League to let the two teams have such a round of cruel matchups between the two teams that is a matter of life and death. Because this match has been elevated to the level of "Scotland vs. England", the game will be intense and hot.

(To be continued)