Scottish Gas Men's Scottish Cup Semi-Final
St Johnstone v Celtic
Sunday, 20 April 2025, kick off 3:00pm
Hampden Park, Glasgow
The second Scottish Gas Men's Scottish Cup Semi-Final sees holders Celtic take on 2021 Scottish Cup winners St Johnstone on Sunday afternoon.
Celtic triumphed in last season's Final, defeating Rangers 1-0 after a late goal from Adam Idah. St Johnstone, meanwhile, are back at Hampden for the first time since they won the 2021 Scottish Cup Final after a win over Hibs by the same scoreline.
The match will kick off at 3pm and is live on Premier Sports, with highlights broadcast on the BBC Scotland Channel at 7:15pm.
Previous Meetings
The two sides last met at this stage in the Scottish Cup in the 2006/2007 season. On that day, Celtic took an early lead through Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink's penalty but Martin Hardie equalised for the Perth side with a lob over Artur Boruc. Vennegoor of Hesselink restored Celtic's lead early in the second half with a near-post finish and, despite not being at their fluent best, Celtic held on for a 2-1 victory. Gordon Strachan's team would then go on to lift the cup that season, defeating Dunfermline Athletic 1-0 in the Scottish Cup Final.
Celtic have the head-to-head advantage in the league games this season, and St Johnstone will have scars from heavy 6-0 and 4-0 defeats suffered to the Glasgow side before Christmas. But Simo Valakari's Saints have much fonder recent memories, having defeated Celtic 1-0 at McDiarmid Park early this month, through an early Daniels Balodis goal. It was only the fourth domestic defeat Celtic have suffered this defeat and it provided a much-needed boost to St Johnstone as they battle to avoid the drop in the William Hill Premiership.
Cup Form
Holders Celtic have won the Scottish Cup on 42 occasions and they also boast a formidable record in this competition under Brendan Rodgers, having won 20 out of 20 matches over the course of his two spells at the club.
They were tested in the Fourth Round by Kilmarnock this season, however, and Bobby Wales' cancelled out Callum McGregor's opener just before half-time. Killie pressed and harried Celtic and were very much in the game until Daizen Maeda's coolly taken finish following Nicolas Kuhn's mazey run gave Celtic the 2-1 victory.
Maeda then grabbed a hat-trick in the Fifth Round as Rodgers' side ran out comfortable 5-0 winners against Raith Rovers.
Hibs were boasting a 15-game unbeaten run in all competitions when they arrived at Celtic Park in the Quarter-Final in what looked a tough test. Kieron Bowie tested Kasper Schmeichel early on to give Celtic a warning, before that man Maeda opened the scoring - reacting first after goalkeeper Jordan Smith had saved Kuhn's initial shot.
Hibs stayed in the game without really threatening and Celtic's dominance eventually told in the last minute as last year's cup final hero Idah met Luke McCowan's cutback to confirm Celtic's place in the last four.
This year's Scottish Cup campaign came at the right time for St Johnstone, as they ended a nine-game winless run with a 1-0 victory over Motherwell at McDiarmid Park in Round Four. That victory came through a solitary Makenzie Kirk goal and 1-0 would prove a familiar scoreline for the Perth side in this competition.
After a largely frustrating Fifth Round tie at home to Championship strugglers Hamilton Academical, Adama Sidibeh diverted Graeme Carey's long-range shot past Accies stopped Dean Lyness to grab the game's only goal with three minutes remaining.
Carey would play an even bigger role in the Quarter-Final as St Johnstone travelled to Livingston. David Martindale's Livi had the better of the first half but Saints got a grip on the match in the second period and the game was settled by a wondergoal from the St Johnstone midfielder Carey, who led fly from fully 30 yards into the top right hand corner of the goal.
St Johnstone have won 7 of their last 13 matches in all competitions since that victory over Motherwell in the Fourth Round and they will be aiming to keep up their impressive clean sheet record in the Scottish Cup as they go into the Semi-Finals.
Pre-Match Thoughts
St Johnstone's Barry Douglas: "From the moment I started to immerse myself in football as a kid, I knew that the Scottish Cup was something special. I can’t say that there was one final or one moment that was a catalyst for that but there was always a dream to play at Hampden.
“The competition has magic. Although you might think you know who is going to win, it doesn’t always happen. Every Scottish Cup game I’ve been involved with, even when I was in the lower leagues with Queen’s Park, was exciting.
“Then it was about trying to win the competition with Dundee United. Now I’ve got a semi-final to look forward to with St Johnstone.”
Celtic's Viljami Sinisalo: “It’s a great place to play football. I played 45 minutes for Finland here (against Scotland),so good memories from Hampden.
"It was nice to play and I’m looking forward to going back. It’ll be really interesting and there’ll be a lot of fans there, so hopefully we can put on a show for them.
"We’ve got to make sure we do the business. These are the games you want to be involved in, every footballer wants to play for big things and that’s what we’re doing at the minute, so we’re very much looking forward to that and our sights are very, very much set on this semi-final."
You can hear more from Barry Douglas and Viljami Sinisalo in Sunday's match programme, which can purchased at Hampden or here.
How to Watch
The match will be live Premier Sports, with highlights on the BBC Scotland Channel on Sunday evening.
Match Programmes
Programmes are available now through Ignition Sport Media.
To purchase your copy online, click here.
Both B5 size 68-page publications are packed full of exclusive content from the semi-finalists, plotting their respective journeys to the final-four of the competition, as well as historical lookbacks and analysis
These official match-day publications are available around Hampden on matchday priced at £5 each, as well as available for home delivery from the above link.