Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic lesson can help Tottenham reach Europa League Final

The Celtic Star

·8 May 2025

Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic lesson can help Tottenham reach Europa League Final

It’s hard to imagine Ange Postecoglou could actually be further away from his home city of Melbourne than where he is at the moment, preparing his Tottenham side in the hours leading up to the Europa League semi-final against Bodo Glimt at the Aspmyra Stadion in Bodo in the North of Norway, which is located inside the Arctic Circle…

Ange Postecoglou, Manager of Tottenham Hotspur (C), speaks to Nick Montgomery, Assistant Coach of Tottenham Hotspur (L), and Sergio Raimundo, Assistant Coach of Tottenham Hotspur (R), during a training session ahead of their UEFA Europe League 2024/25 semi final second leg match against FK Bodo/Glimt at Aspmyra Stadion on May 07, 2025 in Bodo, Norway. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

The weather of course will be warmer and it will also be much lighter than on his last visit back in February 2022 when his Celtic side suffered a 5-1 aggregate defeat in the UEFA Conference League.

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That would send a shiver down the spine of the former Celtic manager

Memories of that would send a shiver down the spine of the former Celtic manager who aims to negotiate tonight’s tricky tie on a plastic pitch to book a place in the final in the beautiful Basque City of Bilbao where almost certainly Manchester United lay in wait.

Man United take on finalist hosts Athletic Club this evening in the second leg of the other semi-final. The conquerers of theRangers tonight who are 3-0 down from the first leg. It’s not impossible and Celtic of course once lost a semi-final in the Cup Winners Cup (the fore-runner of the Europa League) after winning the first leg 3-0. It happens, but not very often.

Ange Postecoglou, Manager of Tottenham Hotspur, gives instructions to his players, during a break in play in the UEFA Europa League 2024/25 Semi Final First Leg match between Tottenham Hotspur and FK Bodo/Glimt at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on May 01, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

Ange at the start if the season noted that he always wins a trophy in his second season aat a club and like Eddie Howe at Newcastle who won the League Cup, Ange Postecoglou should be hailed to the rooftops by Tottenham fans if he delivers them a trophy. Instead he’ll probably get the sack and a better club to manager.

Celtic are used to winning trophies and know a winner when we see one

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Celtic of course are used to winning trophies and know a winner when we see one. No-one wanted Ange Postecoglou to leave Celtic after his five from six trophy haul in the two seasons before Tottenham came calling. Winning the Europa League delivers (yet another) Champions League place for England so either Spurs of Manchester United are going to benefit hugely from winning that Europa League final.

Ange won’t make the same mistake twice

Maybe Ange will be thinking about other things tonight. Not many teams embarrassed him during his time at Celtic but Bodo Glimt certainly did. Joe Hart last week admitted that Celtic underestimated the Norwegians, Ange won’t make the same mistake twice.

Ange Postecoglou, Manager of Tottenham Hotspur, talks during a press conference ahead of their UEFA Europe League 2024/25 semi final second leg match against FK Bodo/Glimt at Aspmyra Stadion on May 07, 2025 in Bodo, Norway. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

When Celtic was there on a freezing February night in 2022 (Matt Corr was at the game and wrote one of his brilliant European diaries which we’ll feature next on The Celtic Star) Ange decided against braving the elements the night before to train on their plastic pitch.

Kilmarnock and Livingston, so why bother?

The logic would have been that Celtic were used to these horrible surfaces playing at both Kilmarnock and Livingston, so why bother?

Not this time. Tottenham were out there last night to sample its delights and probably to scratch their heads and think ‘this is how the other half live’. It’s a long way from the lush Premier League surfaces that they are used to. They should try it in February when it’s icing over!

Speaking at his pre-match media conference, Ange explained why he’s changed his mind on training on the pitch the night before the game:

“No, it was different circumstances and a different scenario with Celtic. Tonight was more about we’ve done this, we did it at Frankfurt, we’ve done it consistently in Europe and I just feel it works better for us and the players are used to training the night before at the venue. So it made sense to do that this year.”

Matt Corr’s Diary from Bodo Glimt versus Celtic coming next on The Celtic Star, it sure beats one outlet repeating the news and multiple sites then doing the same to proclaim that Olympiacos don”t want to sign Luis Palma from Celtic for £3.5m after his unsuccessful loan spell at the Greek Champions.

So Luis Palma will be back at Celtic in the summer unless his agent sorts out a move elsewhere, which he is probably trying very hard to do.

Luis Palma in action for Olympiacos in action during the UEFA Europa League round of 16, 2nd leg soccer match between Olympiacos and Bodo/Glimt held at Stadium Georgios Karaiskakis in Piraeus, Greece, 13 March 2025. Photo One Inch Productions

Of course Palma still has three years left on his current deal at Celtic, he was signed in that summer when Ange was leaving and Brendan was coming in and the recruitment team in place bought as many £3m players as they could find, signing them all up on five year deals. How did that work out?

Best of luck tonight Ange.

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