Celtic v Roma: Team news, referee details, KO time & where to watch | OneFootball

Celtic will leapfrog Roma in the Europa League standings with a victory this evening’s eagerly awaited match Celtic Park.

Last time out Celtic got the better of Feyenoord at their iconic De Kuip stadium with Martin O’Neill doing his bit to put three points on the board to add to the four collected under Brendan Rodgers.

Wilfried Nancy, Head Coach of Celtic FC speaks to the media during a Celtic FC Press Conference at Celtic Park on December 10, 2025 (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Now Wilfried Nancy can add three of his own to take Celtic to ten points and put the Scottish Champions in a strong position to reach the playoffs with two matches still to be played in January 2026.

Ideally the infighting between the club and the supporters can be put aside for now so that we can concentrate on backing the team, the new manager and building on our improved position in the Europa League thanks to that fantastic victory in Rotterdam against Feyenoord achieved under Martin O’Neill.

After this week’s game against Roma, Celtic has two matches to play in the Europa League, both at the end of January 2026, starting with a trip to Italy to take on Bologna FC 1909 on Thursday 22 January before finishing the group campaign a week later against FC Utrecht on Thursday 29 January.

Realistically Celtic will need four points from these three matches to make it through to the play-offs. Nine points from these three games could actually see Celtic avoid the playoffs all together and qualify for the last eight directly. That would be wonderful but making the play-offs should be the initial target and that means essentially taking something from this next match under the lights at Paradise.

Team News

James Forrest won’t make tonight but could be available for the Premier Sports Cup Finsl against St Mirren on Sunday.

Red Star Belgrade 1-1 Celtic.Kelechi Iheanacho of Celtic celebrates his goal Crvena zvezda v Celtic, UEFA Europa League, Football, Rajko Mitic Stadium, Belgrade, Serbia – 24 Sep 2025Belgrade Rajko Mitic Stadium Serbia Photo Nikola Krstic Shutterstock

Kelechi Iheanacho is available but Wilfried Nancy admits that the Nigerian striker needs minutes to get up to speed. Expect him on the bench this evening.

Predicted Celtic Team

Schmeichel; Trusty, Scales, Tierney; McGregor, Hatate, Engels, Nygren; Tounekti, Maeda and Yang.

Subs: Sinisalo, Doohan, Murray, Ralston, Donovan, McCowan, Bernardo, Iheanacho, Kenny and Balikwisha.

Match Officials

The match officials with the exception of the Assistant Video Referee (who is French) are all from Romania, as per the update on UEFA.com.

The match referee for the Celtic v Roma match will be István Kovács and he will be assisted by fellow countrymen Mihai Marica and Ferencz Tunyogi. The Fourth official will be Szabolcs Kovacs while the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) will be Cătălin Popa and the Assistant VAR will be Jérôme Brisard from France.

István Kovács has been in charge of one previous game at Celtic Park, that dreadful 4-1 defeat to Sparta Prague in the Covid season, so he’ll see a very different Paradise with the fans in attendance this time. Kovács also handled the recent Liverpool v Real Madrid in the Champions League.

Kick-off Time

Celtic v Roma kicks off at 8pm

Where to Watch

The game is live on TNT Sports 3, with the broadcast beginning at 7.30pm.

Celtic Park is the place to be with a 60k sell-out. The game becomes available at midnight Celtic Park Time on Celtic TV.

Predicted score

Benjamin Nygren and Johnny Kenny celebrate. Celtic v Falkirk. 29 October 2025. Scottish Premiership, photo Kenny Ramsay IMAGO

Benjamin Nygren to be the Celtic hero scoring the only goal of the game.

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