Story of the Match14min: Baldé gets in a blocking tackle as Porto attacker runs into the box. 16min: Henrik has a half chance as Porto defence fail to clear. He just gets his foot to the ball and it runs wide. Petta delivers it back in and the defence head clear. 17min: Sutton makes space passes back to Henrik then takes the return. Shoots high from 18yds. 24min: Dangerous ball from the right cut out by Baldé following quick free kick which catches out the Celtic defence. 31min: Petta tries a long range effort which goes wide after Petta had made some space. 35min: Valgaeren overlaps and puts a nice ball in. Sutton gets to it but defender gets in the way and it goes out for a corner. 36min: Agathe run wins corner. Petrov takes it short to Petta. His curling cross sweeps across goal and comes off the leg of the on-rushing Sutton and breaks to Larsson. Henrik sticks out his right foot and scores. 40min: Porto corner swept from one side to the other then knocked back in. Turned across goal again but swept over the bar. 43min: Petta gets on the end of a Lambert cross but puts it over the bar. 46min: Larsson shoots wide from 25yds after a Sutton knock down. 47min: Great run and cross by Agathe - missed by keeper but defender does just enough to divert it from Celtic attackers. 56min: A great run from Carvalho ends when he turns inside and shoots. Easily held by Douglas. 58min: Shock for Celtic as shot beats Douglas, hits the post and is cleared by Baldé 60min: Another great run from Agathe wins a corner. Baldé gets on the end of it but the keeper saves well. 61min: Ibarra booked for foul on Petrov. 65min: Lambert gets a knock and goes off for treatment. 69min: Free kick for Porto from 40yds. Cleared by Baldé 80min: Postiga turns and shoots from outside the box but puts it over. 87min: Deco shoots wide. 88min: Jackie McNamara comes on for Stan Petrov. 91min: Corner is flicked on by Portugese captain and goes just wide with nobody covering the post for Celtic. 94min: Final whistle. First Champions League win for Celtic.
After the enforced delay of two weeks ago the official champions League music bounced round Celtic Park. Watching on TV I only heard snippets of it because of the incredible noise in the stadium. It must have been nerve tingling actually being inside the ground. Not only did I have another nail-biting 90 minutes ahead of me, but also I had to share it with old Weetabix head himself, Archie McPherson. At least Billy Stark was alongside him to share some words from the English language that we actually knew the meaning of. Prior to kick off we had been treated to some 'expert' analysis from Andy Walker and Paul Elliot in the company of Jim Delahun (not a spelling error). Big Paul was sporting a silver shirt and tie with probably the biggest knot ever seen on TV since Huggy Bear of Starsky and Hutch fame. Despite this, Elliot managed to extol the virtues of F.C. Porto and the quality they would bring. However, in his opinion, Celtic were good enough to collect the three points. Can't recall Andy Walker's prediction but it did include several grammatical errors. Wouldn't it be interesting to see, and hear, him and Charlie Nick analysing together! Camera interest was high on exiled manager Martin O'Neill sitting (sometimes) in the stand. My only concern about the ban was if we had a poor first half and needed a bit of geeing up at half time. As it turned out he was more than well assisted by wee Robbo, leaping around like an O'Neill clone at times on the touchline, dressed like he was going to the dancing as soon as the final whistle went. Early indications showed that the Porto players, like so many European teams, all looked comfortable knocking the ball around and passed well without threatening the Celtic goal. Mjallby showed uncharacteristic signs of nerves on a couple of occasions but gradually Celtic settled and took control of possession without creating any real chances. Archie continued to 'Whoa' and 'Oof' his way through commentary, informing us that Porto captain Jorge Costa was known as 'the Animal'. Exactly by whom he didn't mention. A couple of Celtic corners came to nothing and the game became a bit chess like, with both sides seemingly waiting for the other to do something. Several niggly fouls had Archie waiting for the 'strict disciplinarian' Dutch ref to reach for a yellow card, but none came in a hard but never dirty game. Archie persisted however, spouting, 'once the first yellow comes Billy, I feel they'll flow like a torrent.' Celtic, urged on by the crowd (quite a lot of empty seats prompted my sons to ask me why we weren't there. I resisted saying 'seventy five quid'), began a good spell of pressure around the 25 minute mark, pressing Porto deep into their own half. STV with their usual broadcasting expertise, spent large chunks of this time watching Martin twitching and fidgetting in the stand along with England coach Sven, up to run the rule over Sutton, wondering how he'd missed the stop at Carlisle as he appeared to be studying his train timetable. Chris, for his part, had showed he won't be dictated to by any watching coach, by blasting his first chance high and wide of the Porto goal. Apart from that he was doing his usual shift, making space, feeding others and holding the ball up as well as any Celtic forward I can remember since Dalglish. Back in the game a great Valgaeren break out of defence saw him take a 1-2 from Henrik and reach the bye line, his cut back was dummied by Sutton but cleared for a corner by the defender. A wicked back post kick by Petrov (à la Lubo) was met by Agathe but blocked for another corner kick. Petta's bending cross from the short corner saw Sutton muscle into the centre back and the ball dropped perfectly for Larsson who volleyed Celtic in front from the six-yard line. Such was the din in our living room that we didn't hear Archie's description of how Henrik had split the atom and defined life on earth before firing home. Half time came as something of a relief as Porto pushed on again and we all wished it was time up instead of only half way. This reporter is aware that I've spent rather a lot of time on the first half so will make the next bit brief. The second half was almost a replica of when Ajax visited although a lovely Sutton flick on should have seen Henrik do better a minute after the restart. 2-0 would surely have finished Porto off. Unfortunately, this is Celtic we're talking about and they gave us a few nervy times. Porto hit the post after a lovely flowing move and nearly scored again after a glancing header from a corner slipped tantalisingly past the far post, although the anxiety could have been relieved if we'd had a defender on the back post. Not quite overrun, Celtic had forced two good saves from the Porto goalie through Baldé and Agathe, who once again produced some great runs in the second half. Can't we use him better earlier in games? Thanks go to the ref for adding four minutes injury time as the visitors pressed forward again, but the Celts were not to be outdone and the final whistle brought a great outpouring of joy and relief. We were off the mark and the news that Rosenborg had been given a last minute penalty against the cheats just rounded off a great night. Another fantastic team performance, Sutton and Larsson again magnificent up front, Lennon everywhere, the back three very solid, particularly Baldé, as long as he stays back. Looking forward to seeing him against the evil ones on Sunday. My man of the match, however, was Paul Lambert, who was everywhere he should have been and lots of places he shouldn't. Finally is it just me or were the old crowds much noisier pre all-seaters? I'm sure we never went as long as the silent periods I heard on Tuesday. We've got a great stadium and a very special team, let's get behind them for the whole game. CELTIC (3-5-2): Douglas; Balde, Mjallby, Valgaeren; Agathe, Lambert, Lennon, Petrov (McNamara 88), Petta (Thompson 68); Larsson, Sutton FC PORTO (3-4-3): Ovchinnikov; Costa, Carvalho, Andrade; Ibarra (Postiga 76), Paredas, Costinha, Da Silva; Capucho, Deco, Pena |