Attrition once again

Celtic now go into a tough round of four fixtures.

Between tonight at Perth and Sevco in the league on the 20^th, the SPFL champions will visit the Stadium John Brown played for next Sunday in the Premier Sports Cup and then play Ferencvárosi TC at Parkhead next Thursday.

For those of a certain vintage, i.e. at least as old as your humble correspondent, Hungarian football left an imprint on many who were blessed to see its golden age.

The storied “Mighty Magyars” made their mark on European football in the 1950s like a creative hurricane.

Before the Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest in ’56, the Hungarian national team seemed on the brink of global dominance.

It isn’t a coincidence that FIFA’s annual competition for “the most beautiful goal” is the Puskás Award.

The brilliant Hungarian forward, the “Galloping Major”, was the focal point of the storied Real Madrid team that dominated the European Cup in the late 50s early 60s.

Many men from Scotland spoke in almost hushed, reverential tones about what they saw THAT Real Madrid team do to Eintracht Frankfurt at Hampden in 1960.

What the Glaswegian neutrals did not know, could not know, was that before that decade was out, 11 local guys would lift the same trophy in the heat of Lisbon.

Unfortunately, for Bonny Scotland’s international chances, they all played for the club formed by Irish immigrants.

Consequently, most of the Lisbon Lions had pitifully few caps for their country.

Thankfully, those days are behind us, and the Jocks have even had a captain called Kieran!

Hopefully KT makes an appearance tonight in Perth.

I would have loved to see Celtic’s inventive, intelligent left back in an Ange team.

In a way too beautifully contrived for a novel, a young Greek Australian drove Ferenc Puskás to training at their club, South Melbourne.

It was inter-generational learning in the beautiful game.

I’m convinced that the Parkhead faithful saw that under Angeball there was some Magyar magic in the mix.

However, when silverware is awarded, it usually comes down to resources, especially in the league.

In a long season, injuries and suspensions make it an attritional campaign.

Across the city, Sevco will be without their well-rounded, talismanic captain for the rest of the year, as his hamstring issues have recurred.

As his predecessor for the armband may have said: “disappointing”.

Martin O’Neill stated in the presser yesterday that Kasper Høgh is back in contention for a place, and Jota isn’t far away from returning.

Resources.

Attrition.

Of course, the visit to Ibrox for the cup tie takes place against the backdrop of an away-ticket allocation dispute.

Inevitably, it was Statement O’Clock in the Blue Room.

This, of course, is framed by the dénouement of the last time the Hoops visited Ibrox and the SFA response announced last month.

I can report that Celtic have brought in their legal heavy hitters on this matter since they released that statement.

My understanding is that a legal missive has already landed at Hampden, pointing out a timeline and, crucially, a paper trail about the Parkhead club’s concerns about security at Ibrox BEFORE the cup tie in March.

For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t think we are in Jim Farry territory, but at this point the SFA has questions of its own to answer about how it decided to sanction the Parkhead club in the way that it has.

Here, I believe, is the recent provenance of this current impasse on away allocations.

The reaction to Odsonne Edouard’s winner for 10-man Celtic was visceral.

This heroically anonymous chap appears to have had the ear of someone in the Blue Room in 2018.

One could argue that going along with this was glib and shameless.