FALKIRK and Hibernian will go into this afternoon's Scottish Cup semi-final knowing they will have to win the competition to qualify for Europe.
This season is the first in which the runners-up no longer progress to the Europa League if their final conquerors have already qualified for the Champions League.
Two years ago Hibs went forward to what proved to be an ill-fated Europa League meeting with Swedes Malmo after being beaten by champions Celtic in the 2013 final. However, that scenario was scrapped at the conclusion of last season.
Scotland will have four representatives in Europe next term, with the Premiership champions going into the second qualifying round of the Champions League and second and third in the league, plus the Scottish Cup winners, progressing to the Europa League. The cup winners enter at qualifying round two and take precedence over the teams qualifying from the league, who begin a round earlier.
However, should Celtic win the cup and the league, the runner's-up in the Premiership will benefit by going into the Europa League at the second qualifying round and fourth place in the league will also qualify for Europe.
Meanwhile, nine players will walk a suspension tightrope this weekend in danger of missing the final next month - but remarkably none are from the Edinburgh side.
Celtic have the highest number of players who are just one more booking away from a suspension that would rule them out of Scottish football's showpiece event at Hampden on May 30. Efe Ambrose, John Guidetti, Emilio Izaguirre and Adam Matthews all currently have one caution to their name from previous rounds and know that one more will result in them picking up a costly ban. Anthony Stokes sits out tomorrow's semi-final against Inverness Caley Thistle as he serves a one-match cup censure picked up in defeating Dundee United 4-0 in last month's quarter-final replay. Inverness will have Ross Draper, Graeme Shinnie and Gary Warren all eager to stay on the right side of referee Steven McLean as they try to pull off a shock at the national stadium tomorrow.
From today's lunch-time kick-off, Falkirk pair Rory Loy - if he recovers from injury - and strike partner Taylor Morgan will miss the final if the Bairns progress and they are shown a yellow card. However, opponents Hibernian have a clean disciplinary record, with no-one having been booked on their way to the semi-final. Striker Dominique Malonga was red-carded in their 2-1 win over Alloa Athletic in November's fourth round tie but he has since served his suspension and only another sending off will result in a player from Easter Road being banned should the club reach their third final in four years this afternoon.
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 hereComments are closed on this article