The Quarter-final draw saw Dukla paired with Ajax, the Dutch side fresh from a 7-3 destruction of Liverpool and strongly fancied to go through. There were 55,000 in the Olympisch Stadion to watch the first leg, the hosts drawing first blood early in the second half, when winger Jesaia Swart fired home from a tight angle. Swart was a decade and two medals into a 17-year career with his only club. ‘Mr Ajax’ would go on to play more games than anyone else for the team, almost 600, eventually winning seven Eredivisie titles, five KNVB Cups and three European Cups, as the Dutch side’s ‘Total Football’ swept all before them. He would not have the last word tonight, though. Ten minutes later, Ivan Mraz finished off a counter-attack to equalise, the vital away goal silencing the home crowd.
The 1-1 draw in Amsterdam left the tie in the balance, and when Swart scored his second goal of the tie on the hour in Prague, Dukla were facing elimination. Then with twenty minutes remaining, Strunc equalised from the spot, after he was bundled in the box. As we entered the closing stages, a Play-off looked certain. However, just as in Celtic’s last-eight tie with Vojvodina, there was a dramatic ending, the unfortunate Soetekouw lobbing his own goalkeeper, to gift the game and the tie to the Czechs.
So it was on the back of six successive continental campaigns, five of them in the European Cup, and a victory over Cruyff’s exciting young Dutch stars, that Dukla Prague prepared for their Semi-final date with Jock Stein’s Celtic, in April 1967. In the Czech dugout would be the coach who had been with the club through all of these adventures and more, since 1953, Bohumil Musil. His latest spell in the hot-seat had commenced midway through the 65/66 season, replacing Jaroslav Vejvoda. That decision would be vindicated by the delivery of Dukla’s first League and Cup double since his predecessor had achieved the same feat five years earlier.
Bohumil Musil
There was a poignant note on the day of the Glasgow first-leg, news breaking that Sam English, the Rangers player involved in the 1931 collision which claimed the life of John Thomson, had passed away following a battle with Motor Neurone Disease, the dreadful condition which would later claim Don Revie and our own Jimmy Johnstone, amongst others. English was only 58 years-old. Rest in peace.
The latest Battle of Dukla kicked-off in the cauldron of a packed Celtic Park. The first half-hour saw chances missed at both ends, Simpson saving from both Strunc and Nederost before Chalmers’ headed ‘goal’ was disallowed for high feet by Johnstone in the build-up. Jinky then popped up in an identical position to chip Celtic into the lead and as half-time approached, things were looking good. As so often happens though, when players’ thoughts turn to the interval, a crucial goal was lost, Strunc taking advantage of defensive hesitation to fire the Czechs level, following a through ball from Masopust.
On the hour, on his first European appearance for the club, Willie Wallace made his mark on Celtic history forever. First, he latched on to a Gemmell ‘up and under’, which had deceived the Dukla defence, to fire the ball high past Viktor with the outside of his foot. Five minutes later, as a free-kick was awarded for a catch which Yashin himself would have been proud off, Auld deceived the Czechs by pretending to reset the ball, instead nudging it to his right for Wallace to strike a tremendous shot inside Viktor’s post. The former Hearts man almost notched his hat-trick shortly afterwards, instead hitting the bar from close-range. Nevertheless, Stein had the two-goal advantage he had demanded.
