Celtic stars 'to meet' the Pope as Brendan Rodgers' side set for private audience after Lazio Champions League clash

The Scottish champions will travel to Rome for their Euro showdown on Tuesday.

Brendan Rodgers and the Celtic players have reportedly been granted a private audience with the Pope.

The Scottish Premiership leaders will face off with Lazio in Rome on Tuesday as they look to mount a late rescue mission of their winless Champions League campaign against the Serie A side. The Scottish Sun now claim that the Hoops will send a delegation to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis the following day with Celtic invited to a special face-to-face meeting.

But one man looking for divine inspiration is Maurizio Sarri after he blasted his players after a shock defeat to struggling Salernitana. The shock 2-1 defeat to the side rock bottom of the Italian top flight leaves Lazio floundering in tenth place in the league going into the Euro showdown - and post-match Sarri attacked his players' mentality after the defeat.

He said: "I hope that in the Champions League, it's a different story because the team's mentality in the league worries me. The Champions League sometimes works miracles, we'll see if against Celtic we will enter the pitch with a different thought process.

"You can't think of playing a match for maybe 50 minutes as we did. Maybe it's also my fault if some players don't perform and if I decided that it is only my fault, I would be the first to leave. We all must take responsibility here."