SENTINELCELTS

Morning, all.

Difficult to remember when I’ve felt so deflated after a Celtic match. Difficult to remember when I’ve felt so proud either. Every one of our players out there put in the shift that I asked for in yesterday’s article. Give us your 100%, and then give us that bit more. They did that. All of them. And came so so close to beating Bayern in regulation time and pushing them to extra time. 

Every one of them deserves to be remembered for their heroics last night, and I’m sure the match will live long in the memory of all who were there or watching on TV. It was relentless, yet it was far from all one-way traffic. The match stats are all firmly loaded in Bayern’s favour, but the truth is somewhat different. 

We had four very good chances in the first quarter of the game-a dreadful effort close-in from Kühn being the pick of them. Score even one of them, and who knows how the game would have gone? As it was, we weathered the storm, absorbed everything that the home side could throw at us while causing them some grief whenever we got the opportunity. And we had a few of them! 

Our starting XI took a blow around the hour mark when Jota caught a sore one in the eye and had to come off. Idah however was already stripped for action, so the injury probably only brought forward a planned substitution by a smidgin. It meant that Maeda, a constant menace for the home centre-backs, was pushed to his favoured wide left position. And he soon caused some damage. 

Coming off his wing to make an interception as Bayern played around in deep areas,he tackled first Upemecano then Kim to push the loose ball to Kühn on the edge of the area. He too shrugged off a challenge as he took a touch before coolly slotting into the corner to give us the lead. 63 minutes into the second half, and honours are even. All to play for. 

Of course, we knew that Bayern would then throw everything at us to an even greater extent than before. If we thought it was backs to the wall before this, it was the bloody Alamo after it! Schmeichel was performing heroics whenever required, AJ was making goal-saving tackles just as the forward was about to slide the ball into the net. CCV and his Trusty sidekick were beating off the high balls, while our midfield were occupied in the middle of our box just kicking it anywhere they could. 

There was little point in doing much else-everyone was back helping out where they were most needed! Problem with that plan though is always that the ball comes straight back to you, as we were finding out-even though we could do damn all about it. I confess that for the last ten minutes or so, I was fixated by the clock in the top left corner of the screen, and it seemed to be advancing very slowly indeed. 

That was just me watching on TV anaw, imagine how the players must have felt! And if those last ten minutes of normal time seemed to be caught in a time-warp, the four minutes of added time seemed like an eternity! Or, at least the first three minutes did. 

For that is when Bayern got their equaliser. Finally breaching our lines, and as the ball squirmed around, two yards from our goal, CCV stuck out a desperate leg to divert it away from danger. Sadly, he could only divert it against the onrushing shin of recent sub Davies, AJ’s international colleague who will never score a softer or scrappier goal if he plays till he’s a hunner. 

The ref, who seemed reluctant to rule in our favour all night, was also reluctant to allow us the 45 or so seconds that should have been remaining, and blew the whistle straight after we restarted the game. By that time, I doubt it mattered much anyway. The goal had knocked the stuffing out of the players and every Celtic fan watching. We knew we had come so far, come so close. But we knew we just didn’t have it in us to get a winner in such a short time. 

Bayern once again celebrated drawing against us as though they had won the actual tournament, which would have brought back memories of twenty-odd years ago for Martin O’Neill and Neil Lennon as they watched from their positions in the media area. The whole enormity of that last-gasp equaliser certainly brought back memories of other hard luck tales of yesteryear, but let’s take nothing away from the performance other than that our players gave their all over a two-legged tie with one of the finest teams in Europe-and gave them one helluva scare. 

Have our performances in Europe this season been enough to announce that we are back as a force to be reckoned with? Well, that’s a subject for another day. Maybe on Friday when emotions aren’t running quite so high, once the adrenalin levels subside to their normal levels. Let’s leave it at that,with the knowledge that there’s at least one top team in Europe knows we aren’t to be taken lightly! 

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Above article by BMCUWP