UEFA Cup Thursday March 25th

Barcelona 0

Celtic 0

Att: 77,108

ref: Domenico Messina (Ita)

Celtic:
Marshall Agathe Varga Kennedy McNamara Lennon Petrov Pearson Thompson Larsson Sutton
subs
Miller for McNamara 43
Sylla for Sutton 83

The Spanish Press might have done well to recall George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and its opening quote from PROVERBS XXVI, 5-6: 'Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.'

The Barca management team duly complied with their folly by doing their bit to write off Celtic's chances in the pre-match hype and were left swilling buckets of sour sangria after the match.

What can be said about such an epic night, when a depleted Celtic squad, carrying walking wounded and drafting in a 20 year old central defender and a rookie 19 year old keeper, shut out a European giant on their own midden and sent them crashing out of Europe? To Catalan story short (geddit?), Celtic were simply immense and gave the Spaniards the hardest fight they've had since the Moors dropped in.

Celtic's El Cid ( Surely El Kid? Ed) was young David Marshall. Commanding, athletic and totally in control... like Atlas holding the world on his shoulders, Marshall was a goalkeeping Titan. Time and again he produced outstanding saves as wave after wave (after wave etc. copyright M. O'Neill) of Barcelona attacks broke on the Green and White barricades.

This was real backs to the wall stuff, as Celtic simply threw men behind the ball and closed Barcelona down, hoping to hit on the counter. Chances to counter did come, but were squandered, either through over working passes or Larsson being caught for pace. Nonetheless, the team effort was incredible, both in terms of its discipline and its composure in the face of Latin temperament and tackling. Barcelona were a class act, but like a wounded Cyclops, they flailed blindly and pummelled away furiously against an immovable Celtic wall.

Every time the Catalan cyclone thought it had blown through the Celtic defences, Marshall simply shut them out again. Their confidence just seemed to wilt with each save. The Catalans exuded skill and class, but Barcelona's resident Mr Ed , the dentally challenged Ronaldinho, showed the other side to his game with some diving, badgering of the ref and stamping on opponents, blighting an otherwise silky performance.

The Camp Nou, vaunted as 'a world class football venue' was not overly impressive. Unquestioningly, an excellent footballing arena, its lack of a roof allowed any atmosphere to evaporate, so that an 80,000 crowd made none of the noise of Parkhead, where the wall of sound worked to such good effect. The 15,000 Celts, in pockets all around the ground sang their hearts out and could be heard above the home support, who skulked away at the end, sending volleys of cans into the Celtic sections with such good grace. Several thousand Celts were encamped around the ground without tickets and partied through the game in an extension of our previous Spanish trip to Seville.

There was a real sense of this night being history in the making (even taking into the account the appearance of Liam Millar as a sub), as Villareal are up next and we must be in with a real shout of getting to Gothenburg. Viva San Martin!