Again. Barcelona.
That’s the headline story from this Champions League draw, and we’re returning to two cities where we’ve practically got squatters rights. Who said (I did, earlier) that the Champions League was about different experiences and exotic locations?
I am excited, but thinking “Good God why???!!!”
Could we have asked for, or wanted, a more glamorous group? Absolutely not. Germany, Spain and England, only the three biggest TV markets in Europe, designed to have the cash registers ringing loudly, but three enormous teams and six enormous matches.
For the sheer entertainment value of these ties, this is unbeatable.
This is the group everyone will be talking about, for months.
Guardiola vs his former club.
A top EPL club against a top side from La Liga.
Scotland vs England.
Brother vs Brother.
It’s got the lot, and on top of that we have our emotional reunion with the team we’ve played so often we could establish our very own European football rivalry.
And all this without wanting to leave out Monchengladbach, who are a top side in their own right.
It makes you feel sorry for those fans who’ll never get to see this kind of event, doesn’t it?
(We all know who I am talking about there, of course, and we actually don’t feel one bit sorry for them at all, if we’re being honest about it.)
This is everything we wanted, and everything we would have been hoping to avoid.
This is the dream draw and the nightmare all rolled into one.
This is sexy football and hiding behind the couch when Zadok the Priest starts.
This is the big draw for players who we might want to sign, and our defence and midfield being drilled like Marines preparing to storm the east coast of Russia.
Box office? You betcha.
Six nights of stark terror? Goddamned right it is.
It’s full houses and empty Valium bottles.
My God … this is what our players toiled and sweated and worked for.
It’s what we dreamed of for the last twenty four months.
We’re back in the big time.
And it doesn’t get much better than this.
But Barcelona. Again.
Does the Nou Camp have a gravity machine with a setting for Celtic, or what?
In Brendan We Trust.
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