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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Ewan Paton

The teams Celtic could face in Champions League group stage

With the season entering its final stages, attention is beginning to turn to European football among Scotland's biggest clubs. 

The likes of Rangers, Aberdeen, Hearts, and then either Hibs or St Mirren will be involved in qualifiers for UEFA's club competitions in the summer.

One team who won't have to go through the trials and tribulations of such games is Celtic.

The Hoops will play in the Champions League group stage next season for the second successive year. 

Ange Postecoglou's men will seal their 53rd league title with a win against Hearts on Sunday or in a later post-split game.

Thanks to Scotland's strong coefficient standings, the Premiership champions will once again automatically qualify for the groups of the Champions League.

There's no doubt that while it was good for the club to be back on the elite front last autumn, Postecoglou will have higher hopes for his side's tilt at it this time around.

They faced off against Kings of Europe Real Madrid, RB Leipzig, and Shakhtar Donetsk.

But who could they come up against this time? 

Well, it's still a little early to tell, with some league positions in other European countries still to be finalised. 

Although, we do already have a rough idea of the sides who are also likely to make it into the 2023/24 tournament.

Down south, Manchester City and Arsenal have both already sealed their spots in the competition as they fight it out for the EPL title. 

They look increasingly likely to be joined by Manchester United and Newcastle as England's four representatives. 

In Spain, their top four is almost certain to be Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Real Sociedad.

In this season's Champions League, both ilan teams will meet in the semi-finals, meaning one will compete in the grand finale in June. 

But in terms of next season, Napoli, Lazio, Juventus, and Inter are the current position fillers. Any one of Atalanta, AC Milan, and Roma could look to topple Inter though, with just two points operating the teams.

Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund will almost certainly be there from Germany, and Union Berlin and Freiburg are currently in the driving seat to join them. 

France only has two guaranteed spaces and Paris St Germain will take one with Marseille or Lens the most likely to join them. Whoever misses out on second will start at the third qualifying stage.

Benfica have guaranteed themselves one of Portugal's spots in at least the qualifiers. They will likely win the league to go straight into the groups, though.

Porto, Braga and Sporting Lisbon are fighting it out to qualify with third place going in at QR3.

Feyenoord are way out in front in the Dutch title race and so will likely take that spot and RB Salzburg are heavy favourites to qualify from Austria. 

Red Star Belgrade have already secured Serbia's place and the rest of the group stage participants will be established via the qualifying rounds and play-offs.

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