As we suspected would happen, the English media has all-but written off Celtic as having even a ghost of a chance against Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League Group, where we’ve been paired with them, Barcelona and Borussia Monchengladbach.
This isn’t exactly a shock. We go into this group as the rank outsiders, the underdogs.
They think we’re the whipping boys, the cannon fodder.
And we wouldn’t have it any other way.
There has never been a time in the history of our Champions League exploits where we haven’t been, even back in the days of O’Neill and Strachan where we built our formidable reputation and that of Fortress Parkhead, where teams such as Milan, Juventus, Porto, Benfica, Lyon, Barca themselves and yes, even Manchester United, came a cropper.
We did it time and time and time again, but still every year we were written off.
In Strachan’s first tilt at the Group we went to Old Trafford and scared the living Hell out of them.
People forget we were in front in that one, through Big Jan, and that United stormed back to lead 2-1 only for Naka to equalise with one of his trademark free kicks. I was at Old Trafford that night for the game, and have never forgotten how proud I was at full time that we’d gone toe to toe with them and would have got a point had it not been for a horrible error from Gravesen that allowed them to nick their third, through Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Still, they underestimated us. They came to Parkhead full of swagger and confidence, but by the time they left it was Celtic who had qualified from the Group first, via the head-to-head record and those two away goals, and another Naka strike, one of such majesty that people who saw it will never, ever forget it and which is replayed endlessly on YouTube for those unlucky enough not to have been there for the moment itself. (I am eternally grateful that I was.)
The reaction to that in England (and in Scotland, it has to be said) was one of utter disbelief.
What cheek we had to upset the apple cart in this way, to overturn the expectations, to put an English side to the sword.
People chose to forget that we’d been doing alright against EPL opposition when we met them on our European adventures; ask the arrogant gits of Blackburn, or the great Liverpool team we knocked out on the Road to Seville.
Lately, that hasn’t been the case, of course.
In 2008, United beat us 3-0 at Old Trafford, in a humbling, chastening, Champions League Group where we were quite simply appalling, being unable even to beat Aalborg home or away, although we did beat Villarreal in the final Group match. What people do conveniently forget is that even that year we rallied and would have beaten United at home but for Ryan Giggs goal with six minutes to go.
In 2009, Arsenal put us out after beating us home and away, by 0-2 and 3-1 respectively; those games were dreadful, forgettable experiences, but their side was at the height of greatness at the time, and was more than capable of beating anyone heavily.
Barcelona know all about us, of course.
We knocked them out of the UEFA Cup in 2004, on away goals, thanks to Alan Thompson’s strike in a 1-0 win at Celtic Park (Keith Jackson’s ratings for that game stick in my head; we’d just beaten one of the finest sides in Europe; his average for our players that evening was a 6) which we followed up with a superbly fought 0-0 draw over there. (Unbelievable as it sounds, Jim Traynor, of all people, was far more generous with the ratings after that one; our average was an 8.)
In 2005 we managed a draw in the Nou Camp although we lost 3-1 at home.
In 2008, we lost 4-2 overall in a double header where we’d lost 3-2 and home and 1-0 away; these are hardly horror show result though.
No-one has to be reminded of what happened in 2012, and I don’t just mean the 2-1 victory at Celtic Park which many rank as their greatest 90 minute experience of watching our club. They only beat us by the same margin in the Nou Camp, and it took a spectacular (or spectacularly lucky) last minute winner from Jordi Alba for them to manage that.
Naturally, they avenged those results in 2013, when Neil Lennon’s shell-shocked and horribly dismantled team (I still blame Lawwell and the board for this result and I always will) went into the Groups appallingly unprepared, with confidence shot, and got what we deserved, including that awful 6-1 mauling in the Nou Camp.
Yet even in that horror year, our last in the tournament, the home tie, played first, when the Group was still competitive, was perfectly respectable; we lost that by a single goal. There wasn’t the massacre most people seem to associate with it.
I’m not saying we’re going to accomplish much more from this group than making a pile of money and watching Brendan’s team grow an inch or two; that’s probably as good as it’s going to get. But I am not disheartened by it, and I don’t expect us to get “skelped stupid” as someone put it to me last night (a Sevconite, yes, of course it was) either.
Fortress Parkhead might have lost the fear factor for the bigger teams in Europe, but within those stands magic can still happen; the Hapoel players who spoke after the game sounded awe-struck, and I’ve seen teams come to Celtic Park – as Karagandy did – and leave shell-shocked at the way the crowd roared at them for the full 90 minutes.
I’ve also watched City play games in front of funereal atmospheres, even at home, and wondered whether their fans are just numbed from the whirlwind turnaround in their club’s fortunes or is the average EPL supporter really just a smug git who thinks turning up is all that’s required, and that the real work should be left to guys on £250,000 a week who are out on the pitch.
Barcelona’s players, who’ve played at Celtic Park so often they could have their own dressing room, will know what to expect; I’m betting those at City don’t.
Time will tell if that’s a crucial factor in what is to come.
But for now, we’re the underdogs, the written off, there just to make up the numbers.
We’ve been here before.
It’s just the way we like it.
In Brendan We Trust.
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