Champions League: Wednesday October 31st

Celtic 4

Juventus 3

0:1 Del Piero (18); 1:1 Valgaeren (23); 2:1 Sutton (45); 2:2 Trezeguet (50); 3:2 Larsson (56 pen); 4:2 Sutton (63); 4:3 Trezeguet 76)

Att: 57,717

ref: Veissiere (Fra)

Celtic: Douglas; Mjallby, Valgaeren, Balde; Agathe, Lennon, Lambert, Moravcik (Petrov 64), Petta; Sutton, Hartson

A battle won, a war lost, but definitely a night to remember.

After the Rosenburg game our fate was no longer in our own hands, and the odds were not on our side. The press peddled the line that Juve would field their second string, which basically meant that two of the new signings were rested and some older heads were brought in. However any line up with Nedved and Del Pierro in it is impressive.

The early skirmishes were promising enough. Lubo finally got his Champions League start. Interestingly enough he was Nedved's boyhood hero. Indeed Nedved soon found himself nutmegged ... by his boyhood hero.

Of course prior to the game there was much hype about diving, cheating swine Amoruso playing. He didn't think the crowd would give him a hard time about what happened in the first game. Wrong. Way wrong.

The scoring was opened after Del Pierro had gone down at the edge of the box (it probably was a foul, but they way he went down you would have thought Joos had pulled out a 9mm pistol and popped a cap in his ass). The nervous hush that fell on the stadium was well justified., Douglas could have brought a ladder and two of his pals and they still wouldn't have kept it out. Sheer quality.

What followed was one of the most exhilarating periods of European football Celtic park has seen for decades. We created four clear cut, goal certainty chances, but only took two. Iincredibly the two culprits were Lubo and Henke, the very people you would bet on to score. Lubo missed a simple one-on-one, and was furious with himself, Henke misjudged a back post header.

The actual goals were quality. Joos got the equalizer with a fine diving header after Lubo had given a perfect display of how to tie a Northern Italian in a reef knot.

Sutton grabbed the lead with a header to match his one in Amsterdam (Lippi had the brass neck to suggest Sutton was climbing, in fact he was being held down). So we could have been 4:1 up, because Juve didn't do anything other than score with their free kick.

The second half started with Trezeguet on for Del Pierro, and soon enough we got a good look at his favourite trick. Given a sight of the far corner the ball was almost behind Douglas before he'd started his dive. A fantastic piece of finishing. But a sickener.

But yet again the spirits rose. The one player who Juve were unable to contain was Sutton. His control, laying off and shielding of the ball were causing all sorts of problems. And after his goal they were certainly sticking to him at corners. We gained a corner and just before it was taken the ref warned the defence not to put their hands on him. The kick was taken, and Sutton was promptly placed in a vice grip to prevent any more of those flashing header type things. The ref gave the penalty. Amazing. The Juve defence went ballistic, but Henke kept his cool and puts us 3:2 up. Bedlam inside the stadium, but nothing compared with what was to come.

A free kick was swung in and knocked down to the left foot of Sutton, who produced the volley of all volleys to put us 4:2 up. This was a goal that deserves to be shown and shown again.

Juve pulled one back after Petta and Balde got in fankle. Trezeguet pounced again.

But a curious thing occurred in the last minute. Juve got a free kick just outside the Celtic box. Sensing a late equaliser they sent everyone forward. The kick was taken, all sorts of things happened in the box, the ball wound up in the net, but the linesman had his flag up, so we could relax. In fact the linesman had his flag up very early, like as soon as the kick was taken. And when the final whistle went the same linesman turned round to the north stand with a grin as wide as the Clyde and gave the thumbs up.

Can't see him getting to do any Old Firm games.