Today the two giants of Scottish football meet again. This time for the 2023/2024 Scottish Cup final. Celtic go into the tie as all time favorites to win the Scottish Cup.
The newly crowned Scottish Premiership champions finished the league 8 points ahead of Rangers. The last meeting between the two sides occurred earlier this month, which the Bhoys won 2-1.
Overall Celtic won the Scottish Cup 41 times. This makes them all time favorites to win the prize. The last time the green and white stripes won the Cup was as recent as past season.
Rivals Rangers have won the Scottish Cup 36 times to date, with the last time they came up as winners going back to the 2021/2022 season. Two years ago the Gers achieved a 2-0 win against Heart of Midlothian, earning them a first Cup final win in more than 10 years.
Joe Hart’s last game
The game will be special in more than one way. For starters, it will be the last game of Celtic’s star goalkeeper Joe Hart. The 37 year old made it to three impressive seasons at Celtic Park, in which he collected three Premiership trophies and one Scottish Cup. The veteran goalie will want to end his professional career on a high and try to add one last prize to his trophy rack.
Rangers on the other end will want to take the opportunity to finally break the dominance of their Glasgow rivals. The last time Rangers beat Celtic was just over a year ago, when the team was still managed by Giovanni van Bronckhorst. The new coach, Philippe Clement, will be eager to earn his first prize with his new side. The coach joined the club back in October, and is yet to show that he can mould a team that can defeat Celtic.
Rangers may tap some hope out of the fact that the last time Celtic and Rangers met each other in the Scottish Cup final the Gers won. But the 3-0 win from 2002 may have faded from the memory of most fans and players.
In terms of injuries Rangers have a number of players out. Rangers’ list of injury sorrow includes back Ridvan Yilmaz and long term abscentees Oscar Cortes, Danilo and Conor Goldson. Celtic on the other end have no noteworthy injury issues to speak of.
The Scottish Cup final will kick-off at 3:00 PM. The match at Hampden Park will be broadcast live on BBC One Scotland, with coverage beginning at 1:15 PM.
