As I sat engrossed watching the knockout stage of the Champions League last Tuesday night featuring Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid, I couldn’t help letting my mind go back 50 years to two semi-finals in the old European Cup, the precursor to the Champions League.
On an April night in 1972 Inter Milan were also involved and the opposition of course one of the elite European teams at the time, our own Celtic.
There were 75,000 supporters at Parkhead as we re-played the 1967 final in Lisbon but unfortunately without the same result. Celtic had entered the return leg as favourites as they held Inter to a scoreless draw in Milan in the snow; indeed Celtic had several chances to claim an away goal.
The home leg was a tight affair with the Italian Catenaccio cancelling out the Celtic attacking flair. Inter had learned from Lisbon. Five of the Lions played that night, Jim Craig, Cesar, Bobby Murdoch, Jinky and Bobby Lennox.
The 90 minutes finished level and another 30 minutes extra time didn’t produce goals so it was to the dreaded penalty shoot out. Sandro Mazzola who scored in Lisbon scored the first penalty and then a man you would put your house on to score was up next.
Dixie Deans, named after the legendary Everton striker who scored 60 in one season in the 30’s, was scoring penalties for fun in training the previous day but whether his attempt was like my five iron on the golf course, someday hitting a ball from a divot, Dixie put the ball so far over the bar at the Celtic end that it was never retrieved!
Jinky, Jim Craig, Pat McCluskey and Bobby Murdoch scored comfortably but the Italians converted all theirs and Celtic were out. It was so disappointing as another final v Ajax awaited, it would have been our third in five years.In those years Celtic were European royalty.
An interesting fact from that night was that over at Ibrox, Rangers played Bayern Munich in the ECWC and made it through to the final where of course their fans wrecked Barcelona after defeating Dynamo Moscow. There were 75,000 at Parkhead and 80,000 at Ibrox and the games were shown live on BBC and STV.
It has never happened in any other European city and shows the potential of Celtic and Rangers if allowed into a Super League?
Fast forward two years and we’re back in the European Cup semi-final again, our fourth in eight years and two more in the European Cup Winners Cup. It was a magic time but this would be our swan song.
Atletico Madrid were our opponents and in a crazy night at Parkhead three Atletico players got a red card and the other eight yellow, and to top it off the Coach was Juan Carlos Lorenzo who had managed Argentina at the ’66 World Cup when his team were classed as ‘animals’!
There were 70,000 fans at Parkhead to witness probably the worst game of football ever seen at the stadium, that is in the sense that it was almost physical kamikaze by the Atletico players as they committed foul after foul and abandoned their talented football instincts.
Down to eight men Atletico continued to commit hari-kari and disrupted Celtic so much that we couldn’t score against the eight men and had to travel to Madrid in trepidation of retribution? Only two of the Lions played that night, Cesar and Jinky, and the wee man got death threats before the return game and Celtic succumbed to a 2-0 defeat. Our days of European glory were over.
Ironically when we played Atletico this season they expressed pride in remembering their team of 1974 and wore replica jerseys, celebrating three sent off and eight booked is hardly something to be proud off, but I suppose they got to the final and that justified everything?
So 50 or so years later Atletico and Inter shared the same field in the mega bucks stage of the Champions League. To be honest it was scintillating stuff and unfortunately I have to say Celtic are just not in the same league at present.
The speed, pace, technical ability and energy was electric in comparison to what we witness in the Scottish Premiership. We play at a pedestrian pace passing the ball side to side, it’s hard to watch.
Atletico and Inter moved the ball at a level we couldn’t contemplate, it reminded me of talking to Joe Logan once. He played for Finn Harps and was a lovely player at LOI level, and incidentally his son Conrad was the Hibs keeper when they defeated Rangers in the cup final a few years ago!
Joe told me he played for Harps against Derby County in a UEFA Cup game when they were managed by Cloughie and were a top team. Derby hammered Harps 12-0 and Joe said the ball was flashing by them at speed and they couldn’t get a touch of it.
That’s what it was like when we played Atletico in Madrid this season losing 6-0, it was similar in recent seasons when we lost to PSG 12-1 on aggregate and heavily to Barcelona. What has gone wrong within our football culture that we are like lambs to the slaughter where once we were European hot shots?
Look at Porto, they ply their trade in a league similar to Scotland, Rangers showed they were not inferior to Benfica recently and lost by a single goal. Porto lost on penalties to Arsenal the other night, they are in the last 16 every year in the Champions League, they have a business plan which we are supposed to follow. They buy up the best young players in Latin America for £500k and after a few years sell them on for £20m?
But still at the same time they are able to qualify for the knockout stages in the Champions League yet Celtic can’t? I would gladly accept winning the Scottish Premiership every year and getting to the last 16 of the Champions League, that would appear like success to me for a club domiciled in a small country like Scotland and to be honest playing in a fairly poor league.
So last Tuesday night brought back many memories, the teams were the same, the jerseys and stadium, the passion was there for all to see, there was just one thing missing and that was of course Celtic.
Patrick McMenamin
READ THIS ON THE CELTIC STAR…Final resting place and incredible legacy of Helenio Herrera
Great article.
The real problem I think we have is inertia from the Boardroom down. A casual acceptance of being top dog in Scotland but that always leaves you vulnerable to seasons like the one we are currently experiencing.
Having said that, with a smaller budget, the team across the city are, with the exception of last year, performing better than us. I find that strange.