It’s been discovered this week that Portugal, or Braga in particular, is not as developed as Kanus or Moscow, which made it virtually imposable to cover a premier (sic) football match in the biggest club competition in the world. I’m sure the insurance costs were high to send valued reporters to a country so lawless that millions travel to it on holiday each year.
I hear it’s based next to hell. A small right turning before hell that your average sat nav might miss. Celtic missed the turning. We got burned but nobody got killed.
It was a tale of three streams for me, all as bad as each other and all had me wishing that I was courageous enough to download Veetle and not worry about some Egyptian Mummy porn corrupting my hard-drive.
So, in-between, the stop, the starting and the jumping the fair on view was difficult to, really, give a fair appraisal too. It was like watching loads of coloured dots trying to be shaken together to make a beautiful butterfly but instead ending up a splattered mess.
It was difficult to tell the players apart. I wished at one point that our midfield had dressed up as the Village People, with Efrain Juarez being the cowboy obviously, and Glenn Loovens a panda so I could tell who was who. It seems that Loovens and Mulgrew are predictable scapegoats, which is no surprise considering Mulgrew used to be a toothpick.
The only thing that was clear to make out was the Serge Gumienny was out to be the centre of attention. His whistle went so often I thought it had an attention deficient hyperactivity disorder. He also had a look of a man that progressed through the ranks of the Hitler Youth and got the title of Commander In Chief Bastard.
Braga? Bland, boring, average with added despicableness that these South American tinged teams have. Their danger man, Alan, had all the look of a session trumpet player in UB40 not a samba star. Maybe, it’s a sign how we have fallen that these teams, who struggle to rate above average can beat us with ease and instantly forgettable ‘stars’.
The match was terrible. Both teams look like they had just been introduced to each other before kick off. Celtic couldn’t get used to the alien shape shifting technology that Braga had used on the pitch. This technology caused the pitch to change dimensions every time Celtic passed the ball causing it to go out of play.
I stopped short of phoning Doctor Who to report this phenomena. I realised that it was just our normal European away performance which causes, seemingly, decent players to become purposeful as sparrows spew.
Both teams looked bored by their ordinariness in the second half and the three nil scoreline certainly was a surprise to this watcher. One nil seemed a bet after about 15 mins of that second period.
I recently watched a documentary on the Making of Jaws. The only reason that film ended up looking the way it did was because the 25ft mechanical shark kept on breaking down causing Spielberg to rethink.
Celtic are that 25ft mechanical shark and Lennon is Spielberg. The movie hasn’t yet started to be made. I reckon we won’t need a bigger boat.
Pretty good 🙂
Game was mince and I’m annoyed, but I think there’s been some overreaction to this. “Sack the board, fire Lennon he’s crap, rookie manager, see I told you !!”. I feel some people were dying to jump on that bandwagon.
Braga are pretty cack, if we had one mildly creative player on the pitch it would’ve been a different result. Ref was a total mentalist. Brown’s still a useless fud. We’ve a decent chance at CP. As with last season, SPL’s the goal and we can build from there.
It took me about 15mins to realize Maloney was on the right..right ?
Unsure if it was him or Ledley. Are both hobbits?
The only thing we have learned is we can’t change a team and expect miracles over night. A few players out there won’t be near the club come end of August.
Plus, America is not the ideal place to prepare. But Helen Kellar could have told us that.
Lennon? Aye, these terrible away results didn’t happen under MON and WGS right enough….
We expect too much, too much of average players, like the pin head Mulgrew for example. If there’s one thing that will continue to bemuse me long after he has gone is why NL decided it was a good idea to invite him back. Unless it was for some misdemeanour during his last tenure and NL saw this as an ideal opportunity to take revenge by tormenting him by playing him in european games. He did a good job of tormenting me so the strategy appears to be having some effect although it maybe needs to be focussed a bit better.
What did we expect on Wednesday night. OK Braga were less than brilliant but they did enough to beat us. We had a team with at least 5 new faces, 1 that had played 2 games previously about 7 months ago, 1 posted awol (Maloney, worst game I’ve ever seen from him) and the rest had probably played a handful of games together, if that. All in a team that were starting off from a very low performance level over the last year.
There were enough good points though to suggest that NL’s vision will be realised sooner rather than later. With the exception of Ledley who looked lost all night, the other new faces looked good and Ki looks more and more as though he will be a great player for us, if he can stop getting caught in possession. One particularly encouraging point was that Murphy appeared to make a difference when he came on and he might, just might, be a hero in the making. The other encouraging point was that the central defenders appeared to be in command, but maybe that was the internet connection, it kept buffering.
martymcfly, with such common sense posting you will be a beacon of light on this blog. thought, Ki? i may blame your buffering for that call. he maybe better once we find out what he is there for…
It was a disastrous performance. Funny thing is, the real crap players on the night were Loovens – Brown – Maloney – Samaras and Zaluska. All players who have done it all before at this level and players who the new bhoys would have been relying on to help them through the game.
Well done Paddy McCourt on signing a new 3yr contract. Personally speaking, wouldn’t have blamed you if you told the club to get to feck after leaving you on the bench the other night.
paddy has decided the bright lights and donkeys of blackpool are not for him. lets see him cement his cult status last held by rudi and anton..