The Road to Seville was a magical adventure. Every round seemed to bring top class opposition and phenomenal new away trips, with a huge Celtic support in tow.
One such occasion was the UEFA Cup fourth round second leg on 27 February 2003. Celtic had beaten Stuttgart 3-1 in the first leg at Paradise. That result was impressive for a number of reasons. Firstly, Henrik Larsson was out injured due to his broken jaw and John Hartson was suspended, Stuttgart were a top class side who finished the season in second place in the German Bundesliga and Celtic had to come from a goal down to earn the win.
Travelling to Germany, Celtic were still without Larsson but did name a strong side: Douglas, Laursen, Valgaeren, Balde, Agathe, Lambert, Thompson, Lennon, Petrov, Sutton, Hartson.
Goals from Alan Thompson and Chris Sutton gave Celtic an early 2-0 lead (5-1 on aggregate), before Stuttgart created a bit of panic by winning the game 3-2.
The huge Celtic support celebrated wildly, in what was arguably the best away trip of the run to the Final.
The follow pictures constitute our photo(s) of the day, as they’re all superb and can’t be narrowed down to one:
Celtic fans in Stuttgart 2003. We took a huge away support, the minimum number reported being 10,000 and others suggesting 16,000. Another amazing night. Goals from @chris_sutton73 and @Alantommo8 gave us an early 5-1 aggregate lead, ended up 5-4 pic.twitter.com/ErAIwRcB93
— Liam Kelly (@cfcliamk96) January 20, 2021
