Epic Celtic vs Roma: Dramatic Europa League Matchday 6 Showdown at Celtic Park

Celtic vs Roma: Match preview, stats, line-ups and key info for the UEFA Europa League showdown at Celtic Park in Glasgow 🏟️

Today, 11 December 2025, Europa League League Phase reaches Matchday 6: one last round of battles before the knockout picture s set. Here you find the list of all clashes, all kicking off at 21:00 CET:

18:45 Young Boys – Lille
18:45 Midtjylland – Genk
18:45 Utrecht – Nottingham Forest
18:45 Ferencváros – Rangers
18:45 Dinamo Zagreb – Real Betis
18:45 Nice – Braga
18:45 Ludogorets – PAOK Thessaloniki
18:45 Sturm Graz – Crvena Zvezda
18:45 Stuttgart – Maccabi Tel-Aviv
21:00 Celtic – Roma
21:00 Celta Vigo – Bologna
21:00 Porto – Malmö
21:00 Basel – Aston Villa
21:00 FCSB Bucharest – Feyenoord
21:00 Lyon – Go Ahead Eagles
21:00 Panathinaikos – Viktoria Plzeň
21:00 SC Freiburg – Salzburg
21:00 Brann – Fenerbahçe

In this article on TotalSportNews.com you will find everything you need about Celtic vs Roma: recent form and European path of both teams, the key tactical themes, probable line-ups and benches, match officials, TV info and one special spotlight on two symbolic figures of this duel – Callum McGregor, captain of the Celts, and Niccolò Pisilli, the Roman teenager ready to write his own chapter.

Tonight Celtic Park becomes a modern battlefield between Celts and Romans. On one side Wilfried Nancy, the new French commander who has just landed in Scotland with his “Nancyball” philosophy. On the other, Gian Piero Gasperini, tactical general with the aura of a modern Julius Caesar, trying to lead Roma across the Channel and return to Italy with three precious points and control of their Europa League destiny. Wilfried Nancy: “Nancy: I have great respect for Gasperini. I studied his style years ago.”

Celtic start the evening in the lower half of the League Phase table but still within reach of the top-24 zone that leads to the playoffs; they sit 21st with seven points and badly need a result after a painful league defeat to Hearts in Nancy’s debut. Roma, currently in the top-16 of Europe, know that a win in Glasgow could even project them into the top-8 and straight into the round of 16, depending on other results.

Celtic’s path in the Europa League

Celtic’s European campaign has been a rollercoaster. They began the season dreaming of the Champions League but were knocked out in the qualifiers by Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty, a painful early exit that pushed them down into the Europa League.

Since then, the Celts have tried to rebuild their European identity. The League Phase has delivered contrasting emotions:

Midtjylland 3-1 Celtic – a tough night in Denmark where defensive errors and missed chances highlighted how fragile the team still was against aggressive pressing.

Feyenoord 1-3 Celtic – perhaps the high point of the campaign so far: a brilliant away performance in Rotterdam, full of intensity and fast transitions, with Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate at the heart of everything.

Other matches against Red Star and Braga have brought mixed results, but overall Celtic have shown they can compete with technically superior opponents when their pressing and tempo are on point:

24/09/2025 – Crvena Zvezda vs Celtic 1-1
02/10/2025 – Celtic vs Braga 0-2
23/10/2025 – Celtic vs Sturm Graz 2-1
06/11/2025 – Midtjylland vs Celtic 3-1
27/11/2025 – Feyenoord vs Celtic 1-3

Next fixtures included today’s game:
11/12/2025 – Celtic vs Roma
22/01/2026 – Bologna vs Celtic
29/01/2026 – Celtic vs Utrecht

In terms of performances, many analysts in Scotland pointed out that Celtic’s European evolution over the last couple of seasons came from improvements in counter-pressing and collective organisation, as captain Callum McGregor himself explained when reflecting on previous Champions League campaigns.

Now, with Wilfried Nancy on the bench, the club is entering a new tactical phase. The Frenchman – who made his name in MLS with Montreal and Columbus Crew – is known for proactive football, positional play and a strong emphasis on relationships inside the group. His arrival in Glasgow is seen as a bet on ideas rather than on big names, and Celtic vs Roma is his first major European exam in front of a full Celtic Park.

Roma’s path in the Europa League

For Roma, the Europa League is not a side quest – it’s a strategic objective. This season, under new coach Gian Piero Gasperini, Roma have walked a more tortuous path but remain in a strong position:

Roma vs Midtjylland 2–1 – a home win built on intensity and late pressure, with the Olimpico pushing the team across the line.

Rangers vs Roma 0-2 at Ibrox – a statement victory in one of Europe’s noisiest stadiums, where Roma’s back three and the running of Niccolò Pisilli and Bryan Cristante controlled the game and silenced the Scottish crowd.

Other matches against Utrecht and FCSB have alternated solid performances with a few lapses in concentration, but the Roman side arrive in Glasgow sitting around the top-16 of the League Phase standings and fully aware that a win could close the qualification story early. Here you find all results collected by Roma in Europa League this season and the next fixtures:

24/09/2025 – Nice vs Roma 1-2
02/10/2025 – Roma vs Lille 0-1
23/10/2025 – Roma vs Viktoria Plzeň 1-2
06/11/2025 – Rangers vs Roma 0-2
27/11/2025 – Roma vs Midtjylland 2-1
11/12/2025 – Celtic vs Roma (to be played)
22/01/2026 – Roma vs Stuttgart (to be played)
29/01/2026 – Panathinaikos vs Roma (to be played)

Domestically Roma have also lived through an up-and-down spell, losing narrowly to Napoli and Cagliari in Serie A but remaining close to the Champions League spots. Gasperini, famous for his results at Atalanta, is now trying to apply his high-intensity, man-oriented system to a Roma squad full of technical talent.

Nancy’s first European battle and the brave Celts

Wilfried Nancy, appointed just days before this decisive game, has already felt how hot the Celtic bench can be. His first match brought a 1-2 home defeat to Hearts and a wave of criticism about his tactics and even the use of a tactics board on the pitch. Nancy responded calmly, saying he would not “waste time” on negativity and prefers to focus on helping his players express themselves.

This philosophy fits perfectly with Celtic tradition: a club that wants to attack, dominate possession and play with emotional intensity. Nancy’s Celts are expected to line up in a 3-4-2-1 that looks to build from the back with Kasper Schmeichel’s distribution, stretch the pitch with aggressive wing-backs and rely on short combinations through midfield.

The heart of the team remains Callum McGregor. Over the years he has gone from versatile midfielder to the club’s metronome, the man who “controls the tempo” and orchestrates almost every attacking move. McGregor has spoken many times about the responsibility of captaining Celtic and how he accepts that “on the pitch the buck will stop with me” – a burden he believes makes him better.

Around him Nancy can count on a mix of energy and creativity:
– Reo Hatate, a dynamic at-times-No.8 who can break lines with both passing and dribbling;
– Arne Engels, capable of playing as a hybrid box-to-box player with strong pressing numbers;
– Yang Hyun-jun and Benjamin Nygren, two wingers who bring directness and one-v-one ability in the half-spaces;
– Daizen Maeda, whose tireless pressing and diagonal runs behind the defence are crucial in Nancy’s game model.

At the back, Auston Trusty, Liam Scales and Kieran Tierney form a back three that mixes left-footed distribution and physical aggression. In theory, Nancy’s plan is clear: push the wing-backs high, keep McGregor on the ball and use Maeda’s depth runs to punish any Roman high line.

The challenge will be doing that while respecting Gasperini’s famous man-marking traps. Can the Celtic ball circulation escape the Roman net, or will Gasperini’s legions suffocate the build-up?

Gasperini as Julius Caesar leading the Roman legions

If Nancy represents the new wave, Gian Piero Gasperini is the seasoned general, a coach who has already spent years upsetting bigger clubs with his organised chaos. In Glasgow he arrives wearing the toga of Julius Caesar: a Roman commander crossing into Celtic territory, determined to impose his own tempo on the Celtic vs Roma game.

Roma also play with a 3-4-2-1, but the interpretation is very different. Gasperini’s teams are built on: strict man-orientations all over the pitch, wing-backs who attack like wingers, centre-backs who step into midfield to press and a front three that alternates between dropping to overload and attacking the space.

In the pre-match build-up, Gasperini openly said that Zeki Çelik and Niccolò Pisilli would start in Glasgow, underlining how much he trusts the young midfielder and the Turkish wing-back in high-intensity games. He also spoke about the need for goals “from everyone”, not only from the star forwards, and about how his Roma must improve in the final third as a collective.

Key figures in his Roman army:

– Mile Svilar, one of Serie A’s best keepers this season, secure with his feet and increasingly dominant in the air.
– Gianluca Mancini and Evan N’Dicka, aggressive centre-backs who happily follow opponents into midfield to keep the lines compact.
– Bryan Cristante, the perpetual motion in midfield, capable of dropping into the back line or stepping ahead of the ball to press.
– Lorenzo Pellegrini, the creative lieutenant who links midfield and attack with his through balls and late runs into the box.
– Paulo Dybala, still the purest Roman talent in the final third: left foot, half-spaces, curled shots and the ability to decide big European nights.

Gasperini sees this Europa League as a concrete path to silverware. With domestic competition fierce and Roma still short of a classic No.9, the coach insists that European success must be built on a collective intensity where every soldier, from Celik to Pisilli, contributes.

Callum McGregor: Celts’ captain and field general

Among all the players on the pitch, Callum McGregor is probably the closest thing Celtic have to a living bridge between past and present. He joined the club at nine years old, rose through the academy, survived loan spells and then became first a key midfielder, then captain. In February 2025 he played his 500th game for Celtic, joining the pantheon of legends like Billy McNeill.

McGregor describes captaincy as a “responsibility” he embraces: his job, in his own words, is to make sure the club remains successful, accepting that when things go wrong he must “front up and face it”. That mentality explains scenes like the recent Scottish Cup final, where he was visibly emotional after missing a penalty in the shoot-out defeat to Aberdeen. He later admitted how deeply the loss hurt him and how much he feels the weight of the armband, using that pain as fuel to improve.

From a tactical point of view, McGregor is Celtic’s field general. Under previous managers he often played higher up, but over time his best role has become the deep-lying conductor. Writers close to the club have nicknamed him the “choirmaster”, the man who sets the rhythm of every Celtic performance.

Against Roma, his mission will be incredibly complex: escape the man-marking of Gasperini’s forwards, offer constant passing angles to Schmeichel and the back three and still find the courage to carry the ball forward and connect with Hatate, Nygren and Maeda.

McGregor embodies the spirit of the Celtic clan. If Celtic are to resist Roman expansion tonight, it will almost certainly involve their captain playing one of those quietly brilliant games in which he rarely loses the ball and constantly dictates the flow.

Youtube video: McGregor @ Celtic TV

Niccolò Pisilli: the Roman kid from the “Olympic cage”

On the opposite side of the battlefield stands a 21-year-old Roman who could become the unexpected hero of the night: Niccolò Pisilli. Recently, Pisilli gave a long interview in which he went back to Casal Palocco, the neighbourhood in Rome where he grew up. He pointed to an old skating area that he and his friends turned into a football pitch, painting the lines themselves and transforming it into their “cage”. For him, that improvised ground was “our Olympic Stadium”, the place where he dreamed of playing for Roma one day.

He joined Roma’s youth sector with a friend from the same neighbourhood, making the daily trip to Trigoria together thanks to their parents’ car-sharing. Pisilli remembers that as a magical time: long drives spent talking about football and an entire childhood built around chasing the Giallorossi colours.

On the pitch he has already started to repay that childhood dream. Last season he scored a crucial goal against Porto in the Europa League, completing a comeback after a Dybala brace and sealing qualification to the last sixteen. In Serie A he has grown into a multi-purpose midfielder: able to press, arrive late in the box and combine neatly with the forwards.

Gasperini loves legionaries like him – tactically intelligent, physically intense and emotionally attached to the jersey. It’s no coincidence that, ahead of the trip to Glasgow, the coach publicly confirmed that Pisilli would start at Celtic Park.

Pisilli is a young Roman soldier who has travelled from the streets of Casal Palocco to the heart of Celtic territory. If McGregor is the Celtic standard-bearer, Pisilli is the Roman youngster ready to carve his name into the marble of the club’s European nights.

Youtube video: Niccolò Pisilli @ AS Roma Podcast

Celtic vs Roma pre-match information 📋

📅 Match date: Thursday, 11 December 2025
🕒 Match time: 21:00 CET
🏟️ Venue: Celtic Park, Glasgow (Scotland)
🧑‍⚖️ Referee: István Kovács (Romania)
Assistant Referees: Vasile Marinescu (Romania), Ovidiu Artene (Romania)
Fourth official: Horațiu Feșnic (Romania)
VAR: Cătălin Popa (Romania)
AVAR: Additional UEFA VAR official (Romania)

Celtic vs Roma: Probable line-ups 🎽

Celtic 🟢⚪
(3-4-2-1)

1 Kasper Schmeichel (GK)
6 Auston Trusty
5 Liam Scales
63 Kieran Tierney
13 Yang Hyun-jun
42 Callum McGregor (captain)
27 Arne Engels
23 Sebastian Tounekti
8 Benjamin Nygren
41 Reo Hatate
38 Daizen Maeda

Team Manager 🧑‍🏫
Wielfried Nancy

Reserves 🔁

12 Viljami Sinisalo (GK)
56 Anthony Ralston
51 Colby Donovan
47 Dane Murray
14 Luke McCowan
28 Paulo Bernardo
10 Michel-Ange Balikwisha
24 Johnny Kenny
49 James Forrest
17 Kelechi Iheanacho

Not available players (Celtic) ❌

Marcelo Saracchi
Alistair Johnston
Callum Osmand
Cameron Carter-Vickers

Roma 🟡🔴
(3-4-2-1)

99 Mile Svilar (GK)
23 Gianluca Mancini
5 Evan N’Dicka
22 Mario Hermoso
19 Zeki Çelik
4 Bryan Cristante
61 Niccolò Pisilli
43 França Wesley
7 Lorenzo Pellegrini
18 Matías Soulé
21 Paulo Dybala

Reserves 🔁

95 Pierluigi Gollini (GK)
87 Daniele Ghilardi
24 Jan Ziolkowski
3 Angeliño
2 Devyne Rensch
21 Kostas Tsimikas
17 Manu Kone
8 Neil El Aynaoui
92 Stephan El Shaarawy
31 Leon Bailey
11 Evan Ferguson

Team Manager 🧑‍🏫
Gian Piero Gasperini

Not available players (Roma ) ❌

Artem Dovbyk
Tommaso Baldanzi

Where to watch Celtic vs Roma ⚽📺

(Please always double-check local listings close to kick-off.)

Argentina / South America: ESPN2 + Disney+ Premium (regional variations by country)
Italy Sky Sport Uno, Sky Sport 252, Sky Go Italia, NOW
Spain: Movistar Liga de Campeones 2 / 3 via Movistar Plus+
United Kingdom & Ireland: TNT Sports 3 and discovery+ (subscription)
USA: Paramount+, CBS Sports Network, TUDN USA, UniMás, ViX

Rest of the world: check local broadcasters via LiveSoccerTV’s global listings for “Celtic vs Roma”:
Full Celtic vs Roma TV listings on LiveSoccerTV

Celts vs Romans, who writes the last chapter?

The script almost writes itself. Celtic Park – with its banners, green waves and famous noise – becomes a natural stage for an historical confrontation during Celtic vs Roma. The Celts, wounded but proud, follow their new coach Nancy into battle, trusting the leadership of Callum McGregor, the captain who has already matched Billy McNeill’s trophy tally and still wants more.

Across the halfway line, the Romans march in formation behind Julius Caesar Gasperini, knowing that a win in Glasgow might give them a direct route to the Europa League last 16. At his side runs Niccolò Pisilli, the kid who once painted goalposts on a concrete rink in Casal Palocco and imagined that little cage as his Olympic Stadium. Tonight, for ninety minutes, Celtic Park will be exactly that.

Is this the night when the Celts defend their fortress and push themselves back into the top-24, or will Roma carve another road north on their European map?

As always, feel free to drop your predictions and man-of-the-match picks for Celtic vs Roma in the comments on TSN.

For more coverage on Roma, follow our Serie A section:
Totalsportnews Serie A Section

Follow all the emotions of the day on TotalSportNews
Because with us, football writes history ⚽🔥

Enjoy Celtic vs Roma and all Europa League games

Image credits

Image: Celtic Football Club patch on counterfeit T-shirt – U.S. Customs and Border Protection photo, public domain (via Wikimedia Commons).

Celtic vs Roma: Celts vs Romans – Will Fearless Julius Caesar Gasperini Conquer Celtic Park?