UEFA Cup Thursday October 31st 2002

Celtic 1

Celta Vigo 0

1:0 Larsson (85)

Att:59,553

Ref: Hermann Albrecht

Celtic: Douglas; Balde, Valgaeren, Laursen ; Agathe (Sylla 81), Lennon, Lambert (Hartson 75), Petrov, Thompson; Larsson, Sutton

Ha, Johnny Foreigner put to the sword again in fortress Parkhead. Well maybe not just yet, given that we now have to produce another Blackburn style away performance and avoid another Basel style debacle.

While we should probably have scored more than just one, the important point, again, was not to concede. Vigo came with the reputation of a top flight La Liga side, riding high this year. But a quick scan over their season puts things in a slightly different light. They are quite high in the league, but they haven't played Real, Barca or Deportivo yet. They have played all of the bottom six, so you could say that they've yet to be properly tested on that league position.

However La Liga is still a hard place to earn a living, and it was clear to all even before the game started that this was a decent side.

And so it proved. They were all comfortable on the ball, and their passing was pretty neat at times, unlike some of ours. Especially in the first minute when Joos gifted them the ball and they hared into our box. Visions of Basel swept round the stadium, but happily the end result of this move was a misshit shot that Rab gathered.

To be honest that was almost their most penetrating move. Other than that, all Rab Douglas had to do was gather a few crosses. Balde, Joos and Laursen did the rest.

Henke scored the goal, heading in after Balde had knocked on a corner.

After the goal we still went continued to dominate the possession, but seemed more concerned with not letting anything in at the other end. Fair enough - we've seen enough horror shows in Europe to appreciate the value of a clean sheet.

And now we're just one decent performance away from European football after Santa has been for the first time in Stilian Petrov's life!