Celtic to face Dortmund & Villa in Champions League

Celtic will travel to face last season's runners up Borussia Dortmund and Aston Villa as part of this season's Champions League campaign.

In the revamped league phase - which has replaced the traditional group stage - the Scottish champions were drawn against RB Leipzig, Club Bruges, Young Boys and Slovan Bratislava at Celtic Park.

Brendan Rodgers' side will travel to Dortmund and Villa Park, as well as Europa League champions Atalanta, and Dinamo Zagreb.

The date and times for the fixtures are expected to be confirmed on Saturday.

The first round of games is scheduled for the 17-19 September, with the final round of matches taking place on 29 January.

Celtic's recent record in European football's top competition is poor, having failed to reach the round of 16 since the 2012-13 campaign.

In the past two seasons at this level, they have finished bottom of their group, with just one victory.

The 2-1 success against Feyenoord last December was their first Champions League home win in 10 years following frustrating near things against Atletico Madrid and Lazio in Glasgow.

Now they will need to finish in the top 24 places of the 36-team table to give themselves a chance of reaching the last 16 for the first time in 12 years.

How does the new format work?

What awaits Celtic?

On paper Celtic's more favourable fixtures all come at home.

RB Leipzig, who beat the Scottish champions twice two seasons ago, came out of Pot 1 after finishing fourth in the Bundesliga last season, 25 points adrift of title winners Bayer Leverkusen.

Young Boys of Switzerland and Slovan Bratislava of Slovakia both won their domestic titles comfortably last season, with the latter making their debut in this competition.

And Club Bruges narrowly won the Belgian top flight last season, having managed to reach the Champions League knockout stages in 2023.

Away from home, though, Celtic's fixtures appear more daunting.

A trip to the Westfalenstadion to face Dortmund will provide a stern test, although the German giants are now under new management in Nuri Sahin having lost to Real Madrid at Wembley under Edin Terzic in June.

Unai Emery's Aston Villa, meanwhile, finished fourth in the Premier League to qualify for this competition for the first time and have a strong home record.

Serie A club Atalanta claimed their first ever European trophy by ending Bayer Leverkusen's long unbeaten run in the Europa League final.

And Zagreb are the reigning Croatian champions and are unbeaten since March, when they exited the Conference League after a heavy defeat by PAOK Salonika.

How to follow the Champions League on the BBC

For the next three years, from 22:00 on the Wednesday of Champions League matchweeks, there will be match-by-match highlights available on the BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app.

There will be a highlights show on BBC One on the Wednesday, running from 22:40 to 00:00.

There will also be clips online and on social media, as well as live text commentary and radio coverage for all matchweeks on the BBC Sport website.

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