Juventus’ closest journalist gave their fans a preview of what The Old Lady can expect next week. Apparently, Juve were lucky drawing Celtic, who are not the same as the team who beat them 4-3 11 seasons ago (but didn’t qualify for the knock out stage).
The outcome of the second leg is a formality, but Celtic Park has them spooked:
“Juventus got a benign [Champions League] draw, even lucky.
“The Bhoys are not the same team who beat Juventus 4-3 a few years ago. They have a few gems, like [Tony] Watt, but bet everything on physical and dead-ball football. Celtic Park is absolutely extraordinary, it goes beyond what you can write, read or tell. What you see on television is not even the smallest part of what you endure in the flesh, 60,000 people do not offend you but make you know you are in the enemy camp.
“The Park is one of the most influential and dangerous stages in the world. It has everything to challenge you, to induce the classic ‘bad day’, to give you stomach cramps and the need to get out as soon as possible. The fact Celtic beat Barcelona there was not random.
“Common sense suggests Celtic cannot beat Barcelona but football said different. They did with merit, playing beyond their means and with a little luck. This is what Juventus will need to be wary of.
“Antonio Conte will hammer into his players not to underestimate their opponents, but for once it is not the team, it’s the stadium the need to worry about.
“Forget folklore images of children wearing green and white scarves, or of fans coming out of Scottish pubs and going to the game by finishing a beer and ordering another. Don’t let the chorus of ‘You’ll never walk alone’ charm you if you have not heard it with your own ears. To watch from your HD TV is one thing, be there for 90 minutes, start to finish, ever if you’re winning, is different.
“Celtic are different than usual teams. Juventus fans, if they behave the way they should and live this adventure the right way, will have a great experience. The Juventus Stadium can be a bit like Celtic Park. We Italians miss their culture, their history, their being able to accept any defeat and celebrate every possible outcome, accepting any opponent. Their team will be sacred of Juventus but their stadium and fans will not say the same thing.”
We’ll play our part on Tuesday but I am sure Neil Lennon and his players will be pleased to hear they are considered something of a sideshow. The victory over Barcelona was a magnificent but it was achieved as a result of a tactical master-plan, nothing less. It’s the men in green and white hoops Juve need to watch.
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Imagine you’re a Juventus player.
Do you really want to train in a place which is half shut and has the hangman’s noose dangling over it?
Anyone who doesn’t think we’ve been eating horse meat for years must be wearing blinkers.
Bairds shut?!
Time for the unseen fenian hand to get its finger out!
HH!!
Is anyone aware of anything special in the pipeline for tuesday? The full stadium display at the barca game was breathtaking, and would be a difficult one to top.
Then again, our glorious green brigade are very innovitive bunch of guys n gals.
Petec-Victor won’t be near a jersey tomorrow,along with plenty others.U 20 squad will do me fine mate.Might be the making of some of them.
Has he been done for promoting cannibalism?
Would be brilliant if after the obligatory 30 days that Rubentus decide that the payment for the use of mintys midden is retained due to it being a sub standard service thus being deemed as an illegitimate negotiable invoice (0) ! Do you think chuckles will have the brass neck to ask for the money up front ? Don’t ask the face painters opinion !!!!
When Blackburn trained at Minty Park it was ‘men against b(h)oys’.
HH!!
Asonofdan.
Cannibalism is against the law he should have got life;-))
petec,
I wouldn’t play Victor tomorrow – there’s bound to be one of them would have a go at injuring him. Mind you he would probably come off worst though.
Interesting comments from Accountingweb:
“there are a few points of clarification that should be made about the article.
the appeal is against the Murray group, not Rangers, and they are still trading at the moment, though Lloyds TSB effectively own them if they converted their debt to equity.
Rangers / Murrqay Group admitted that 5 cases were not correct EBTs during the case and tax was to be paid on them
HMRC are looking to get a case decision which they can then use as a legal precedent to go after other football clubs as well as companies who have abused this tax law and manged to avoid millions of pounds of tax for very rich people while the rest of us have to pay for it through tax rises.
anyone readingf the judgement with an Accountancy background would realise that the minority view form the excellent Dr Poon, ( who was the only Accountant on the panel) basically looked at substance over form and ripped the case for Murray Group / Rangers to shreds. Her conclusions where much longer than the majority decision, she went into the mechanics of the case in a lot of detail and basically laid out the HMRC appeal case.
the majority decision was taken by 2 lawyers, who’s view was based on a very narrow point of law form points made in the case form the main Murray group witness, whom they both agreed was not a credible witness.
as an aside, various witnesses form Rangers admitted that they did not give the SFA the ‘side letters’ given to the players which gave the players gurantees about getting their money and rangers would be liable for any tax due. They even admitted during this case that this was to circumvent the SFA registration process and effectively meant that these players were illegally registered and a tribunal was held last week headed by Lord Nimmo Smith to review these registrations and decide if Rangers would be stripped of titles for financial doping. ie the Lance Armstrong of Scottish Football.
there is wider relevance here as it also meant Rangers could have had players playing illegally in european competitions for a number of years and also prize money and champions league money they received should not have been due to them. this then brings up the compensation aspect agaisnt football authorities.
The current President of the SFA. (Scottish Football Association) was involved at Rangers in the registration of players to the SFA during the early years of this process and also received an EBT. His organisation will be in charge of the penalties to be given to Rangers which seems to be a very big conflict of interest.”
asonofdan
18:46 on 8 February, 2013The guy that gave the police horses a sausage roll got 7 days jail
Might have been the horse’s dad he ate ffs…
Tallybhoy
18:45 on 8 February, 2013
As well as bringing the club chaplain with them for the tie with Celtic, Juventus will also include an exorcist in their official party and their Ghanaian player Asamoah is having a witch doctor flown in from Accra, solely to ensure that Murray Park is rid of malevolent spirits while the team train.
HH!!
__________________________________________________________________
Are you being serious or jesting?
I cannae see Juve letting this happen.
How spooked are they?
A Big Happy Friday Evening to all my friends on CQN, posting and lurking.
Tonight’s “vinyl to digital” project is the 6-sided Wings Over America.
As Alan Partridge famously said when someone knocked Wings, “they were the band The Beatles could have become”!
Right, side 3…
The Juve priest is nae bother at a’ to Chuckie – he’s going to personally meet and greet the Juve entourage wearing his orange “F the Pope” tee shirt.
No such a thing as a problem for Chuckie – just another unplanned opportunity to pander to his knuckle dragging demographic…
!!Bada Bing!! & Gordon_J
No one in Scotland can intimidate Victor on that pitch. Victor will be the first name tomorrow IMO
That cretin Levein said on SSB that he has applied for 5 or 6 jobs!
Where? Who’d have him?
Maybe a dream team of him an fat sally. Nae tactics and nae strikers:-D
Monaghan1900 @ 18:51
I take it every “form” is meant to be “from” except when it is meant to be “form”.
Sport of the Working Class?
Following Celtic from Ireland, an expensive obsession.
Traditionally the working class have been by and large the main audience for football. But sadly in the current climate the working class are being out priced in Ireland with little or no deposable income to spend on luxuries or hobbies.
Following Celtic from Ireland is also getting tougher. You would think with the so called low fare airlines advertising cut price flights that it would be easy to jump on a plane at little cost to see our beloved Celtic but alas it has become harder. Most of these cheap seats don’t exist and Ryanair no longer fly home from Prestwick on a Saturday night and Aer Lingus are ripping the piss out of us with overpriced return flights.
There are numerous reasons why the Irish Celtic supporters are not travelling in the numbers they once did, firstly there are a lot of people unemployed at present on the Emerald Isle especially those who worked in the construction industry. For those still in employment they are forced to work for less for longer. Football has become a casualty for those who are now working to survive. Interest rates have increased even though it was the Irish tax payer who bailed out the lending institutions. Properties are in negative equity. Income tax has increased we get little or no benefit from the PRSI we pay and we have been crippled with social charges and household charges. We used to get our bins collected by the council now we pay private companies. A property tax is looming and water charges amongst other taxes will also further cripple the working class.
When I started following Celtic back in the late 80’s, we were also in a recession but nobody was mortgaged up to their eyes in debt, during the boom in Ireland people were obsessed with a new car in the drive and an American fridge in their kitchen. The fridge was most likely bigger than their parent’s kitchen. Back then the pubs were still full and we looked forward to football on the television as it was not 24/7. In the late 80’s Aer Lingus controlled the air and flights to Glasgow cost in and around £99 and you booked them in the local travel agent and paid it off in dribs and drabs and managed to get to the odd game via this very expensive route.
The first game I attended we had to leave the ground early to make it back to the airport to the catch the flight. If you wanted to see all of the game you had to stay overnight. Bed and Breakfast, an expensive luxury for cup finals! But one thing was sure the game would go ahead at 3pm on a Saturday, so unless the game was called off due to the weather you were guaranteed to see the game, unlike now. Games can now be changed with no consideration for travelling fans a minutes notice to suit Sky and the like but yet Scottish football gets f**k all in return from Murdoch and Co when you compare to the money that the EPL teams get but then again the authorities in Scottish football seem to have been going from one crisis to another since they first made a bollox of the TV rights. SPL TV, do me a favour!
Back to the late 80’s early 90’s Noamh Padraig CSC entered the supporter’s scene and offered a cheap way for Celtic fans based in the North East of Leinster to get to games by coach. A long day yes but one you could afford and travelling by coach and ferry meant you could get to more games with like-minded Tims and also see the full 90 minutes without having to run down the London Road flagging down a black cab. The Padraig still run a coach to games but the demand is nothing like it was apart from CL games. When you think back, four coaches on occasions left the GPO in O’Connell Street with over 200 Celtic fans on board picking up in Balbriggan and Drogheda along the way. Indeed St. Margaret’s CSC of which I am a member was formed almost 15 years ago with a little help from Noamh Padraig and started running buses to each game. Although St. Margaret’s coach trips are few and far between these days the St. Margaret’s club still run trips via air and coach. They like many clubs in the surrounding Leinster counties have had to reinvent themselves to keep the club alive and kicking and have now members throughout Ireland and Glasgow.
When Fergus McCann rebuilt the club and the stadium, season tickets became hot property and everybody wanted one. Coaches were filled regularly from Mid Leinster to Donegal and beyond. Sadly season tickets are no longer in demand for numerous reasons. I have kept mine going but get very frustrated with the amount of midweek SPL home games which if you attend can mean using up two days holidays and an overnight hotel stay and Sunday games and early kick offs these are just three reasons why Irish based Celtic fans are not renewing their season books. Stand-up comic and Celtic fan, Kevin Bridges recently joked on stage that SPL used to be a two horse race before rangers financially self-exploded but that now it was Show jumping! I was delighted that ranger’s went bust and that a new club had to form. They used financial doping to win, a bit like disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong only there was 11 of them without bikes each time they took to the pitch. Justice was done and they most likely will enter administration again. But whether we like it or not when rangers came to town they put bums on seats and got the fans excited unfortunately their replacements, Dundee do not and this is yet another reason why season book sales are down as you can now buy a ticket on the day for all domestic games at Celtic Park or pick up a freebie from a mate.
Yes fans queued for Juventus tickets and in fairness to Celtic, season ticket holders got extra ticket options before they went on general sale. Celtic Park will always be full for these nights as will the coach’s, boats and airports but games like this are an exception to the rule. Home Saturday games a few and far between. In January we had one v Hearts, in February we play Dundee Utd, in March we play Aberdeen and that game would have been changed to a mid-week fixture had we beaten St. Mirren in the league cup semi- final? We also are also down to play Hibs at Celtic Park on Saturday April 6 what are the bets that this game gets switched to Sunday?
I mentioned earlier that clubs had to re-invent themselves by organising flight trips etc., but with all the fixture changes this is now becoming harder and harder. When a game is switched fans are forced to cancel their plans or book another flight usually at an inflated price. With so many games getting changed in these financially hard times is it time for the supporter’s bus to the docks to make a comeback? at least on the boat you can generally change onto another ferry on another day if the fixture is changed at no extra cost. I don’t think I will ever see the day that 4 supporters buses pass by Drogheda on the way to the docks but if it did ever happen it would be a good kick in the balls to Michael O’ Leary’s Ryanair as I said above they no longer operate a return flight from Prestwick on a Saturday night and those in control at Aer Lingus who seem happy to fly half empty planes home from Glasgow on a Saturday night because they simply charge too much for the average punter. The next three games I have booked flights for but I am then returning to my roots for a coach trip. I will let you know how it compares to hanging around airports moaning about the price of flights to anyone who will listen.
Keep the Faith
(Editor, More than 90 Minutes, Celtic Fanzine)
You and 9 others like this..
petec
I heard this from my impeccable Italian ‘source’.
He/she(?) might be a semi-shadowy figure on the fringes of legality, but I trust him/her implicitly!
…but then again – he/she might be talking p@sh!
HH!!
Aldi now confirming many of their food products contain horse meat…who’s next? My lidl pony?
emusanorphan at 18:28. The Caledonia bar owned and run by a cqner I believe. See the game in Budapest there! 1pm CET.
Isn’t Charlie missing a trick here? Surely he could be getting millions from moneybags Dave for training ground naming?
Tallybhoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uZlvKXnYU4
Petec-a wee cyberpint bet on that mate.
Embdae watching Dancing on the Edge on BBC?
Science Fiction?
Two words:
” Soylent Green ” .
Michael
Yes, the first one’s right and the others should be ‘from’.
HH
!!Bada Bing!! 19:06
I am
Paul67 et al
Walking down a country road the other day when I spotted a horse in a farmer’s field.
What caught my eye was that it only had three legs. Seeing the farmer nearby I tried to ask;
“That horse over there, I notice it…..”
“Fantastic horse” he replied, “Only last week it rescued the neighbour’s son from the pond”
“One thing that struck me…..
“Amazing horse that, just a couple of days ago it warned us that the farmhouse was on fire, enabling us all to escape”
“I couldn’t help noticing that it has only got three legs”
“Yeh, I know, a horse like that…… you don’t want to eat it all at once”
Michael-:) made me laugh there.
That Emmerdale farm is on the tele and there’s a burd on tap of a tasty hoarse ! Get the dinner oan mrs T !!!
Evening Bhoys & Ghirls
For those Friday nite quiz nuts out there, tune in tonight at 9pm for 5 rounds of all things Celtic.
See you in a bit!
HH
CRC
Nae racing the morraw at Newbury and Leopardstown due to lack of horses
Fat Sally has spent all week thinking of this excuse…
“I don’t particularly go along with this part-time philosophy – I think Gardner has a full- time train of thought and his players have a full-time train of thought.”
4 3 3 tomorrow.
Fraser
Adam Rogne Kelvin. Gershon
James Vic67 Joe16
Commons
Stokes Lassad
Subs Dylan for James, Rogic for Kris, Tony for Lassad
Re Juve training at Murray park,I would imagine that a CL team travelling abroad would have sorted out travel arrangements,hotels,training facilities some time ago when the draw was made with assistance I would assume from the home club….just because ole chuckles says it ..doesn’t mean it’s true bhoys and ghirls….
SOAL-VG :)