RONNY DEILA, the Celtic manager, has insisted Scottish football must be realistic about their present European ambitions and accept it's getting more difficult to get past clubs which not long ago were regarded as also-rans.
The Norwegian wants to see not only his own team progress in this season Champions League, and indeed expressed little doubt this would happen starting with a win against FC Stjarna tonight, but he would happily welcome both Aberdeen and Inverness Caledonian Thistle enjoying prolonged runs this season for the good of the game in this country.
St Johnstone's Europa League campaign was ended at the first hurdle last week by Alashkert of Armenia, not the first time a Scottish club has lost to opposition from what might be described as a non-football country.
Deila, however, is not surprised that our clubs in recent years have found it less than straightforward to compete against fairly low opposition.
"We have to concentrate on what we can do and we want to get into the group stage," said Deila. "That is important for us and it's important for Scotland. We hope of course that everyone else is also doing well in Europe so that we can get better as a nation.
"But it's tough. European football is tough. There are a lot of good countries out there, good football teams, and a lot of money around, so it's not easy,
"Scotland is a small nation. It's like Norway, five million people. So, of course, it is very hard. There are many, many countries where football is the biggest sport and they have good conditions to train well and do well. Also, there are a lot of countries with rich people who go into big clubs, or smaller clubs, and do them good. It is a tough journey."
Asked directly about St Johnstone's failure to get past an Armenian side, Deila said: "I don't know the level in Armenia so that is hard for me to say. But there could be good teams in other countries, even if the national team there is not good, because they have a rich man standing behind them.
"You have to look at the club rather than the nation. We also have to be humble, realistic and honest.
"When you go through these qualifiers and you look at where we stand in Scotland, that's the level we are at. We can't cheat ourselves better, we have to work to be better. Hopefully Aberdeen and Inverness will do well, along with ourselves, so we can get some good results."
Deila believes Iceland's champions would not rank among the best three teams in the Scottish Premiership and is certain that at least Celtic will do their bit for the co-efficient.
"We are big favourites against this team," he said. "We have played a lot of those games before so we know what is going to be important, which is to go out at a high tempo and have discipline, push on for 90 minutes and play with balance in the team so that in the end we break them down."
Kris Commons will miss this match with a broken toe but may be ready for the return in Reykjavik next Wednesday.
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