Huge gulf between Europa and Champions Leagues

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The Celtic Star

·7 March 2025

Huge gulf between Europa and Champions Leagues

The gulf between the Europa league and Champions league is as huge as ever and last night just confirmed that…

The standard of quality in the Europa League in contrast to the Champions League is absolutely staggering, it’s not as much as a gap but an absolute chasm.

You can only beat what’s in front of you

Firstly I’d like to say this is not the views of someone with green tinted specs, due to theRangers win over Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce in Istanbul last night, credit due where credit is due and they fully deserved to beat their Turkish opponents, no matter how poor Mourinho’s side might have been. You can only beat what’s in front of you after all.

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Jose Mourinho of Fenerbahce during the Turkish Super League match between Galatasaray and Fenerbahce at Rams Park Stadium on February 23, 2025 in Istanbul, Turkey. (Photo by Ahmad Mora/Getty Images)

The fact that Fenerbahce are seen as a big scalp is just one example of the standard of side competing in the last 16 of Europe’s secondary competition.

Galatasaray, the side sitting directly above Fenerbahce in the Turkish Superliga finished 14th in the standings and were dumped out of the play offs by AZ Alkmaar. And remember that Galatasaray who were only competing in the Europa after being dumped out the Champions League play offs by none other than Young Boys who as we know were viewed as cannon fodder in the Champions League after finishing rock bottom on zero points.

It doesn’t exactly reflect positively on the standard of Turkish football at the moment.

Daizen Maeda in action in the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 League Knockout Play-off second leg match between FC Bayern München and Celtic FC at Allianz Arena on February 18, 2025 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

Further proof of the competitions poor standard is that Man United and Spurs, two of the poorest underperforming teams in the EPL this campaign were among the favourites to lift the trophy, although Ange Postecoglou’s side will have drifted in the betting after losing at home last night.

The difference in quality between the two competitions is staggering

The point remains that difference in the quality on show between the two competitions is quite staggering. In fact I’d go as far as to say that we ourselves would be in with a good chance of winning the tournament if we were competing. But we were among European football’s elite this campaign, and can hold our heads high in how we exerted ourselves on a much bigger stage.

The standard is poorer at Europa League level but so too is the money.

Just an Ordinary Bhoy

Daizen Maeda of Celtic scores his team’s fifth goal and his hat-trick goal during the Scottish Cup match between Celtic FC and Raith Rovers FC at Celtic Park on February 08, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)