Celtic vs Real Madrid LIVE: Champions League result, final score and reaction tonight

Reminder of tonight’s teams as we approach kick-off. Might be a busy night for Celtic stopper Joe Hart.

Celtic XI: Hart, Juranovic, Jenz, Carter-Vickers, Taylor, McGregor, O’Riley, Hatate, Jota, Abada, Giakoumakis

Real Madrid XI: Courtois, Carvajal, Alaba, Militao, Mendy, Tchouameni, Modric, Kroos, Valverde, Benzema, Vini Jr

As for Celtic, they have two major additions in terms of transfer fee: Jota and Cameron Carter-Vickers, both for around £6m. Alexandro Bernabei, Daizen Maeda and Sead Haksabanovic also arrived for reasonable fees, while free transfer arrivals included Benjamin Siegrist and Aaron Mooy. Christopher Jullien was the only player to leave for a fee this summer, so it is a year of considerable outlay for the Scots.

A couple of Champions League wins would go some way toward proving their business the right course of action to take.

The summer transfer work at the Santiago Bernabeu was not exactly non-stop, but it was significant.

Casemiro’s departure was a surprise and a notable exit, given how little that midfield has changed over the last half-decade, but Aurelien Tchouameni is more than capable of stepping up into the void - he’s the big arrival and cost around €80m.

On a free transfer also came in Antonio Rudiger, while the only other notable departures were Reinier (loan, Girona), Marcelo, Isco (both released), Gareth Bale (LAFC), Borja Mayoral (Getafe) and Take Kubo (Real Sociedad).

Players, managers and fans arriving. We’re a little over half an hour away from kick-off still, so not too much activity inside the stadium yet, but this is a game nobody wants to miss. Celtic Park will be absolutely rocking at kick-off.

Can Real Madrid go on and defend their title once more this season? There’s a long road ahead and of course the mid-season break for the World Cup could disrupt and dictate an awful lot yet in the second half of the campaign.

The group phase is just all about getting the job done inside the six matches and making sure you’re in the knockout draw.

Season so far for these teams:

Celtic

It’s six wins from six in the Premiership for the league leaders after beating Aberdeen, Ross Co, Kilmarnock, Hearts, Dundee United and at the weekend, Rangers in the Old Firm derby. They’ve also beaten Ross County in the League Cup, too - and only two goals conceded across that run.

Real Madrid

Almeria, Celta Vigo, Espanyol and Real Betis have all been vanquished by LaLiga’s reigning champions, but they’ve also picked up silverware already. Real beat Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0 in the Uefa Super Cup at the start of the season.

Tonight is the return of the Champions League “proper”, as they say - the group stage starts here.

The early fixtures so far stand at Dinamo 1-0 Chelsea - which you can follow live right here - and Dortmund are leading 2-0 at home to Copenhagen.

Our game, and the rest of tonight’s, starts at 8pm BST.

The end of the Champions League group stage can’t come soon enough, because it is impossible not to feel that this season’s will be settled predictably quickly. That is down to much more than the World Cup dictating this penultimate edition of the format, to be changed in 2024, will conclude by the first week of November.

While there are always more surprise results than people expect, most of the super clubs have hugely forgiving paths to their traditional place in the last 16. All of Real Madrid, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea, Liverpool and even Tottenham Hotspur should get through with ease.

Group C - featuring Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Internazionale and Robert Lewandowski’s return to the Allianz - is the only pool that could be described as an old-fashioned “group of death”. It is an old point in itself now to say the competition used to be full of such challenges, but that makes it all the more relevant. It looks like it has never been as bad. Little wonder that the main intrigue around the draw in Istanbul this week has been over the mid-tier clubs pushing to start remedying prize money.

That points to how none of this is the fault of the group stage as a format, but rather the financial disparity that Uefa and this very competition have fostered and overseen.

Even some of the better individual fixtures are attractive precisely because they are predicated on that economic gap, writes Miguel Delaney.

The Champions League begins this week with six British sides involved in the action.

Celtic host holders Real Madrid in an eye-catching clash on Tuesday, when Manchester City and Chelsea also start their challenges. Liverpool and Rangers – together in the same group – play on Wednesday, as do Tottenham.

Here we look at the form of the sides facing the British teams - with Chelsea already having got their campaign underway in this evening’s early kick-off.

And Celtic’s side is now in place too. Two changes from the weekend victory over Rangers for Ange Postecoglou.

CEL XI: Hart, Juranovic, Jenz, Carter-Vickers, Taylor, McGregor, O’Riley, Hatate, Jota, Abada, Giakoumakis