CELTIC face the long trip to Astana for the second year in a row after drawing the Kazakh champions in the Champions League play-off round.
Brendan Rodgers' side have already come through two rounds of qualifiers against Linfield and Rosenborg, but face one more obstacle before they can return to the group stages.
The two sides met in the third qualifying round of the Champions League last season, when Celtic came out on top with a 3-2 aggregate win over two legs.
Read more: Brendan Rodgers: Celtic went into play-off last time with hope, now we have belief
Leigh Griffiths netted a crucial away goal at the Astana Arena to secure a 1-1 first leg draw almost 4000 miles from home.
The Scotland striker was again on target with a penalty in the second leg, but the Hoops required a dramatic stoppage-time spot kick from Moussa Dembele to send them through after the Kazakhs had pulled one back at Parkhead.
The first leg will be played in Glasgow on 15/16 August before the return in Kazakhstan on 22/23 August.
Celtic were seeded for the draw in the champions route, meaning they were able to avoid the likes of Olympiacos, FC Copenhagen and Maribor.
The ten play-off winners will join 22 automatic group stage entrants ahead of the group draw on Thursday 24 August, while losing teams at this stage will drop into the Europa League group stage.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel