James Forrest Has His Finest Moment In A Celtic Shirt As We Over-Turn The Nightmare In Karagandy To Go Through To The Champions League Groups.
Man oh man, but this was a tense evening …
Most Celtic fans remember this as a hearts-in-the-mouths affair, against a team that had proved surprisingly decent in their home leg and came to Celtic Park knowing that if they could hold us to a one goal win, or even snatch a goal themselves, that they’d be in the Group Stages of the big competition instead of us.
It’s hard to overstate how desperate and dreadful Celtic had been in the first leg of this one; our performance that night was disjointed, lax, unfocussed and filled with stupid mistakes. I don’t think a lot of us held out much hope for the second leg.
That game took place on 28 August 2013, and it was characterised by a goal that came as late in the first half as James Forrest’s stunning winner did in the second. The 45 minutes had come, and gone, when Kris Commons hit a 25 yard scorcher to send us in at the break with the lead.
Just three minutes after the re-start, Samaras had levelled the tie. That set things up nicely, for a finish as stressful as any I’ve ever watched as a Celtic fan. We survived a shot that hit the post, one that was cleared off the line and we saw Anthony Stokes come awfully close and still there was no resolution. We had played well enough that extra time was something we didn’t exactly dread, but only the crazy brave would have wanted another 30 minutes of this.
The irony of ironies was that Celtic had been contemplating pulling Forrest off, in preparation for the added time. There was 91 minutes on the stadium clock. Then Stokes got the ball and weaved into the area. He turned the ball to Forrest and the kid hammered it home. It cracked off the crossbar on the way into the net, and Celtic Park was engulfed in happiness.
But also relief, and we can’t kid ourselves otherwise. That year saw us adopt the suicidal policy of actually weakening the squad before every European tie started, and we very nearly paid the penalty for doing so by getting knocked out before the Groups.
The story wasn’t to have a happy ending; the Groups themselves were a bloody nightmare, and even a disaster, as the policy came back to bite us on the arse.
But for that night, and that shining moment, a guy called James Forrest was the Prince of Parkhead!
I can’t not be happy about that!
