There are three sides to soccer in Scotland.
There is Celtic, the green-and-white half of Glasgow that has ties back to the local Irish immigrants and the Catholic faith.
There is Rangers, the blue-and-white half of Glasgow that has ties to the English and the Protestant faith.
And then there is the rest of Scotland, which is a collection of smaller clubs that are lucky to get any crumbs the big two happen to drop.
Gordon Strachan once fought for those crumbs as a young midfielder at the start of a successful career that eventually carried him to Manchester United and two World Cups for Scotland.
Now, as manager of Celtic, Strachan is having the time of his life at the helm of one of the most recognized clubs in soccer.
“Celtic is the most exciting club in the world. Man United, Real Madrid? Yeah,” Strachan said, shrugging Tuesday. “With Celtic it’s something new every day. It’s great fun.”
Another new experience will come for the club, which was founded in 1888, when Celtic faces the Major League Soccer all-star team on Thursday night at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.
For MLS, the midseason party is a chance to show off its growing collection of talent and validate its players’ skills against a Celtic club that has become a regular in the prestigious European Champions League.
For Celtic, it’s a tuneup match ahead of its August season and a chance to extend its presence into the ever-growing United States soccer market.
“It’s very much a worldwide brand,” Celtic defender Steven Pressley said Tuesday after practice. “It’s a fantastic club. We play in front of a full house every week, which is 62,000 supporters. It’s a club based on a great tradition.”
Winning is at the heart of that tradition.
Under Strachan, Celtic has won the past two Scottish Premier League titles, giving the Bhoys (the team’s nickname) a whopping 41 domestic championships to their name. Add to that haul a total of 47 Scottish cups (Football Association and league) and a European Cup in 1967, when Celtic became the first club to win the hallowed trophy with a home-grown squad, and it’s easy to see why the clover on Celtic’s badge has four leaves.
Although its stars might be unknown on this side of the pond, Celtic has an impressive collection of talent that includes Thomas Gravesen, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Lee Naylor. Japanese star Shunsuke Nakamura did not make the trip.
Against the MLS squad Thursday, Celtic will face a group of in-form players who will be motivated to steal some of the shine off Celtic’s U.S. tour, which concludes Sunday with an exhibition match against the Chicago Fire.
Although Celtic midfielder Scott Brown conceded Thursday’s match isn’t monumental, a good result has value.
“It’s always important,” Brown said. “We always want to win, no matter what game you play.
Coaching the MLS squad, which includes Rapids captain Pablo Mastroeni, will be two more Scots. New England Revolution coach Steve Nicol will head the team along with former Rapids star John Spencer, now an assistant coach with the Houston Dynamo.
Nicol said Monday he “is on the blue side” of the Glasgow rivalry, while Spencer, who grew up in the rough-and-tumble Glasgow neighborhood known as the Gorbals, became the first Catholic player to go through Rangers’ youth system.
To gauge the kind of fuel behind the Celtic-Rangers rivalry, a showdown dubbed the Old Firm, one must understand all the elements that make it one of the most watched soccer matches in the world.
The teams first met May 28, 1888, where about 2,000 fans watched Celtic win 5-2. The teams have played 375 times, with Rangers holding 149 wins to Celtic’s 134, along with 92 draws.
The games are renowned for the tension in the stands and on the field. The matches are physical, often dirty, while some fans bait each other with sectarian songs and banners and often clash violently with each other in the streets afterward. According to the hospital trade union Unison two years ago, the number of assaults in Glasgow after an Old Firm match is nine times higher than normal.
The root of that violence is Catholic vs. Protestant as much as it is political, as banners and songs for the Irish Republican Army and Ulster Defense Association used to pop up frequently before both clubs moved to squash such displays.
Thursday’s match could be low on passion, but an evening start is sure to help a Celtic squad used to the cold and wet. Last year the MLS all-stars watched England’s Chelsea squad wilt in the midday heat at suburban Chicago’s Toyota Park en route to a 1-0 victory.
Strachan joked that the field at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park was the biggest he had seen and an inch shy of being illegal. That, along with the warmth, should bring the Scottish giants down just a bit.
“Here it will be a slower game,” Strachan said. “It’s unfortunate, because the quicker soccer is played, the better it is. We’ll try to play a quick tempo.”
Celtic by the numbers
9 Consecutive league titles won from 1966 to 1974
41 Scottish Football League titles won
62 Game unbeaten streak (a UK record)
375 Matches against fierce rival Rangers
1888 The year the club was founded
Thursday’s game
MLS all-stars vs. Celtic FC, at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, Commerce City, 7 p.m.
