Celtic vs AC Milan: Preseason Showdown at Celtic Park
Celtic Park gets its glamour night a little early this summer. On Saturday, with the Scottish Premiership opener looming, Celtic close out their preseason against one of European football’s grand old names: AC Milan, seven-time kings of the continent and still a measuring stick for any club with serious ambitions.
Kickoff is 3 p.m. in Glasgow, the same across the UK. In the United States, that’s 10 a.m. ET, 7 a.m. PT. In Italy, 4 p.m. CEST. A friendly on paper, but the timing and the opposition give it a harder edge.
There is no conventional TV broadcast. The game sits behind CelticPlayer, the club’s in-house streaming service, which will carry the match worldwide, including to American viewers. Rights are sliced elsewhere: beIN Sports Connect in Australia, DAZN in Belgium, Sky Sport Calcio in Italy. For a preseason run-out, it’s a surprisingly global stage.
Amorim’s Milan Debut – Without Pulisic
The headline act for Milan will be on the touchline, not the pitch. Rúben Amorim takes charge of the Rossoneri for the first time, but he does so without Christian Pulisic, who remains sidelined after a brutal World Cup exit with the United States.
The American forward suffered a bone bruise and a microfracture to his tibia and fibula in the round of 16, an injury serious enough to alarm but not to derail his season. The expectation, as reported by CBS Sports, is weeks out rather than months.
Amorim has already sketched out the role he sees for Pulisic when he returns.
“Pulisic is a highly talented player, but unfortunately, he got injured again,” Amorim said, as quoted by CBS Sports. “I have an idea of where I want to see him play — on the left as an inverted winger.”
That vision will have to wait. And Pulisic is far from the only absentee.
A long list of World Cup participants are set to watch from the sidelines: Mike Maignan, Pervis Estupiñán, Koni De Winter, Adrien Rabiot, Ardon Jashari, Luka Modrić, Rafael Leão, Alexis Saelemaekers and Santiago Giménez are all expected to sit this one out. New marquee signing Gonçalo Ramos, an $84 million arrival, is still on holiday.
There may, however, be first glimpses of the new Milan under construction. Mario Gila and teenage prodigy Francesco Camarda, both summer additions, could pull on the Rossoneri shirt for the first time. For Amorim, it’s a chance to test ideas rather than reputations.
He arrives from Manchester United, where his stock rose despite Milan’s collapse down the Serie A table last season. That slump cost his predecessor and reshaped the club’s summer. This game, squeezed between training blocks and long flights, is his first live experiment.
Celtic Chasing a First Win – and a Spark
On the other side, Celtic come into this meeting still searching for something very basic: a preseason win.
Martin O’Neill’s side have stumbled through the warm-up schedule so far, drawing with Middlesbrough and Shelbourne and suffering a heavy defeat to Sporting CP. Performances have been patchy, but the story has not been confined to the pitch.
Crowds have told their own tale. Only around 5,000 supporters turned up for the Middlesbrough draw, a strikingly low figure at Celtic Park and a visible sign of the frustration that has built over the board’s transfer dealings.
O’Neill, though, has pushed back on the idea that apathy has set in.
“It’s pretty expensive to come to games now,” he said, via GlasgowWorld. “We’ve got a game against AC Milan next week, so if some people are coming to both games, that’s a lot of money.”
He knows what a full house under the lights can do for his team. He also knows the mood will turn quickly if the early weeks of the season resemble this uneven preseason.
There have been bright spots. Camilo Durán, the club’s only permanent signing so far this summer, announced himself with the equaliser against Middlesbrough and is poised to lead the line again. The Colombian has already become a focal point in O’Neill’s attack, more by necessity than design, but he has not looked out of place.
Cameron Carter-Vickers is another key figure edging back towards full speed. The American centre-back, returning from a ruptured ACL, played an hour in that Middlesbrough match and is expected to feature again. His presence, even at less than 100%, steadies a back line that looked exposed against Sporting.
World Cup returnees Alistair Johnston, Kieran Tierney, Auston Trusty and Yang Hyun-jun are all available, giving O’Neill options and a little more steel. One notable omission is Daizen Maeda, who will not feature amid reports that he is closing in on a move to Ipswich Town. His energy and pressing have been central to Celtic’s recent style; if he goes, a tactical recalibration will follow.
Old Foes, New Questions
Celtic and Milan know each other well enough. They have met 12 times in competitive fixtures, with Milan winning eight, Celtic just once, and three games ending level. The names and managers change, the histories don’t.
This time, the stakes are different but not insignificant. For Celtic, it is the last dress rehearsal before Dundee arrive on 3 August to launch the Scottish Premiership campaign. The rhythm, the combinations, the sharpness in both boxes — all of it needs to look closer to ready against elite opposition.
For Milan, it is the start of a long preseason road. After Glasgow, they fly to Australia for a derby with Inter Milan, then face Chelsea and Manchester United before opening their Serie A season away to Torino on 23 August. Amorim must blend returning internationals, big-money signings and academy hopefuls into something coherent, quickly.
So this friendly carries a quiet tension. One club searching for a first win and a bit of belief before the real thing starts. The other trying to erase the memory of a collapse and prove that a new coach and a new project can restore order.
Under the green-and-white lights of Celtic Park, with history in the stands and uncertainty on both benches, the final preseason whistle won’t just end a game. It will tell each of these clubs how far they still have to travel before August counts for real.
