A week later than planned Celtic walked onto the Champions League stage for the very first time. Ideally we would have been arriving in Turin with three points in the bag from our first home game, but we now faced the group, and one of the tournament favourites on their own patch.
I think even the most fervently optimistic fan would have been delighted with a point, but few of us could have envisaged the drama that lay ahead. Was the lashing rain going to help us? Would David's lack of match fitness be something we could exploit? Loads of thoughts like these raced round my head as the teams lined up.
Celtic set up in their usual 3-5-2 and it appeared as strong a team as we could have hoped for. Interesting also that Bobby Petta was deemed fit enough to be on the bench.
The game started at a pretty slow tempo but Celtic settled well and enjoyed some good possession, managing to win two or three free kicks in good areas around the box. Unfortunately Thompson's normal good delivery wasn't on show and they were all cleared easily.
Juventus had a couple of long range shots and a free kick from Del Piero that went close but, as the half went on Celtic were more than holding their own and should have gone in front when a looping Sutton header appeared to be heading in low at the far corner. Buffon showed why Juve had paid £32 million for him by stretching superbly backwards to tip the ball round the post. This stung Juve into a succession of corners, one of which required Balde to head off the line after Douglas had badly misjudged the cross.
Just as we hoped we could get to the interval goal-less, Juve took the lead. Salas, almost anonymous for the previous 43 minutes, twisted and turned big Joos inside out before cutting the ball back to the unmarked Trezeguet to tap home. A real blow after such a great performance by Celtic, but surely they must take heart at the way they'd played.
No changes for the second half but again we started brightly. Lambert and Lennon were closing down brilliantly in the middle making Davids more and more irritated and he was eventually booked after a string of fouls had gone unpunished.
Celtic almost levelled but Agathe was unable to keep a difficult bouncing cross low enough to trouble Buffon. Significantly the Frenchman was seeing a lot more of the ball than he had in the first half and it would ultimately prove fruitful.
A bit of trickery from Del Piero after 64 minutes set up Trezuguet, there seemed little danger as he was near the edge of the box, but he powered a superb header low into the corner past the despairing dive of Douglas. If we're honest I guess most of us thought that was the end of it, but the fighting spirit of this team was to thrill us yet again.
With twenty minutes to play Petrov got one back, his shot from a Larsson free kick taking a slight deflection into the net. When Davids was sent off five minutes later the confidence began to surge through the Celts. Agathe was causing all sorts of bother and from one of his byeline crosses Sutton was hauled down and the ref gave a penalty. Henrik was a lot cooler than me and thousands of others as he calmly rolled it home sending the £32 million man the wrong way.
Pure delirium turned to utter anguish and disbelief in the last minute when Juve were gifted a penalty. Perhaps the ref from his position may have thought contact had been made but why does he have a linesman? His position must have been perfect to see the blatant cheating that had just taken place. The culprit picked himself up to score what turned out to be the winning goal although Sutton almost bagged an incredible equaliser right at the death.
Once again we'd been taken from the heights of ecstasy to the very pits of despair during a game of football, but we'd witnessed a performance by a Celtic team full of heroes whose passion is only matched by their manager whose after match interview brought tears to my eyes. He was like a coiled spring and showed what this great club meant to him.
As long as that kind of emotion is bubbling within him and his players we don't need to fear anyone.