After a testing few weeks in which hardly anything could go right for Postecoglou, the new Celtic boss has seen his fortunes dramatically improve over the past few weeks, with the Bhoys heading into Wednesday’s first leg on a four-game winning streak in all tournaments.
After Midtjylland crushed their Champions League dreams early doors, Celtic dusted themselves down for a Europa League third-round tie with Jablonec, and Postecoglou’s men marched to a 4-2 victory in the Czech Republic before a 3-0 success on home soil.
A 6-0 thrashing of Dundee in Scottish Premiership action was sandwiched in between those ties, and Celtic also advanced to the quarter-finals of the
Scottish League Cup over the weekend with a thrilling 3-2 success over Hearts as Odsonne Edouard, Kyogo Furuhashi and Stephen Welsh made the net ripple.
With a dismal start to his competitive reign firmly consigned to history, Postecoglou has his sights firmly set on a fifth consecutive Europa League group-stage appearance for Celtic, who last suffered defeat at this stage of Europe’s secondary tournament all the way back in 2011.
Having held down third spot in the Eredivisie table for the final months of the 2020-21 season, AZ Alkmaar missed out on Champions League qualification by a whisker and are now vying for a third consecutive group-stage appearance in the Europa League.
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Pascal Jansen’s side enjoyed a solid pre-season campaign with victories over OFI, Real Sociedad and Torino, but their Eredivisie season kicked off in
disappointing fashion on Saturday, as RKC Waalwijk frontman Michiel Kramer struck the only goal of the game for his side on the stroke of half time.
If a lack of competitive action was one thing, kicking off the 2021-22 season scoreless, pointless and winless is hardly a recipe for success either, but AZ can take solace in the fact that they have never been knocked out at this stage of the Europa League when they have progressed this far previously
