I’ve been trying to interpret the Champions League group all evening. It’s an exciting draw. The world’s biggest box office team will come to Glasgow, a chance for us to marvel at, and test ourselves against, Messi, Iniesta, Xavi and the rest. We also have a sporting chance of finishing second or third, either of which would be acceptable.
For me most of this analysis is irrelevant for now. The two most important games are the first, Benfica, and the last Spartak Moscow, both at home, so for now, all that really matters is the 90 minutes at Celtic Park against Benfica on 19 September. Beat Benfica and you go to Moscow in the following game with nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Can we beat Benfica at Celtic Park? Benfica have lost all three games they have played at Celtic Park, twice in recent Champions League history, but they are not a pot two team and we are not a pot four team for nothing. They have played only two league games this season and did not benefit from being tested by a Champions League qualifying competition.
In short, playing Benfica in the first game, when we will have played twice as many competitive games as they have, is ideal. We will be ready for them.
Tomorrow is a big day. Who was it said ‘perfect day to bury bad news’? While some of us are busy trying to keep a server online as transfer speculation reaches its annual crescendo, what chance last year’s accounts will be released?
If they are (and I have no information on this), you can count on some very bad news. Losses will be frightening, which sheds some light on some of the earthy tones from Neil Lennon today on just how big a result the win over Helsingborgs was.
We needed that win. We needed Messi and his pals to help us sell 60,000 ticket packages, and to prompt Celtic fans to go out and buy some of the many thousands of season tickets still available.
Let me leave you with a word that came out from the Spartak camp tonight. Andrey Tikhonov, Spartak player until he became a coach at the club last year, said, “Barcelona are favourites from the group. We and Benfica will be fighting for second place.
“Celtic are outsiders. The Champions League competition is about very good technical football. It has nothing to do with running after the ball that somebody kicked forward.”
Beat these clowns, Celtic.
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Surely not
Kenwyne Jones yes please
Berra no ta
HH
Hail hail, late article Paul.
Happy with draw;-))
curses new article
It must be charlie bhoy
Ten Men Won The League
22:26 on 30 August, 2012
Celtic Underground @celticrumours
Remember where you heard the name Ambrose first.
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Was it on a tin of custard?
Spartak are gettin’ it…
just hearing that Sevco have contacted uefa and asked for the pot Celtic were in this evening..
seems they don’t have a pot to ….. in…
B B
Sent Tommy an email abt 2 days ago to get details abt the leaflets.
Oh those Russians
Jude
I am Tommy lol CRC and me share email addy for weeoscar4life
Ill have a look
HH
Auldheid ….
If only one seed lands on fertile ground, my journey through life will have been worth it!
Hail Hail
Estadio
efe ambrose
berra
kenwyne jones
and
del piero
Spartak seem to play in a huge stadium with few fans no matter the opposition
Where the hell can the ‘frightening losses’ come from?
Peter Lawwell wont look too good if this is the case after his smug ‘we are very well run’ act.
pedrocaravanachio67
22:30 on
30 August, 2012
Ten Men Won The League
22:26 on 30 August, 2012
Celtic Underground @celticrumours
Remember where you heard the name Ambrose first.
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Was it on a tin of custard?
Lol
Paul
Being a sad gambler,I watch lots of games, watched a fair bit of Spartak, mainly cos of Aiden, and imo, they are well beatable, I hope we ram his words down his throat.
In other news
… true to his words Craig Levein has left Kris Commons out of the Scotland squad (Brown is not included but I presume thats because he is injured). That’s just weird – Commons and Forrest (included) are surely the most in-form Scottish players? No Jonny Russell or Tony Watt either obviously we all over-rate them. Basically if you play in the bottom third of the EPL (or sit on the bench thereabouts) you are a stick on – unless your name is Fletcher in which case you get a little voodoo doll with lotsa pins and a big sulk.
Defenders: Christophe Berra (Wolverhampton Wanderers), Gary Caldwell (Wigan Athletic), Daniel Fox (Southampton), Grant Hanley (Blackburn Rovers), Alan Hutton (Aston Villa), Russell Martin (Norwich City), Charlie Mulgrew (Celtic), Andy Webster (Heart of Midlothian)
Midfielders: Charlie Adam (Liverpool), Don Cowie (Cardiff City), Graham Dorrans (West Bromwich Albion), James Forrest (Celtic), Shaun Maloney (Wigan Athletic), James Morrison (West Bromwich Albion), Matt Phillips (Blackpool), Robert Snodgrass (Norwich City)
Forwards: Ross McCormack (Leeds United), Jamie Mackie (Queens Park Rangers), Kenny Miller (Vancouver Whitecaps), Steven Naismith (Everton), Jordan Rhodes (Huddersfield Town)
Actually it’s got everything to do with running for a ball that someone kicked forward.
Take that out the game and you have …….ballet.
Hail Hail
Estadio
Gordon Strachan is now a CELT he defends us time after time
Jude
Email sent back to you
HH
Thats both ITV and those damn Russkies being disrespectful to our famous club. Sure does get uo my nose. BRING IT!!!
Time for another vote sabotage…
La Vanguardia ask who will be the easiest team for their Barcelona to beat.
http://www.lavanguardia.com/participacion/encuestas/20120830/54345216494/rivales-barsa-champions-grupo-g-asequible.html
Ive went for Moscow.
Well just so long as Spartak don’t bring their fans to Celtic park I’ll be happy after some of their behaviour in recent years.
LAST 16
MINIMUM
barraised.com
Did anybody hear chuck getting interviewed on SSB earlier on, was wondering if any of the investagitive journalist would have asked a pertinent question like, “have you paid Rapid Vienna yet?” No…. didnt think so.
Very interesting day tomorrow in many ways!
PC67
Malarkey
Levein will be unemployed by the end of October when Scotland’s WC qualifying chances will be over shortly after they just begin next
So the last game at home to spartak could be crucial for last16 or third place. Looking forward to it already ;)
If we can beat Benfica at Paradise then grab maybe one or two points out of the next 4 games, then beat Spartak we have a real, real chance.
Obviously Barca should win everything at the Camp Nou, here’s hoping they’re on top form when they visit Russia and Portugal, and have a off day when Glasgow is their destination!
Estadio
That’s us goosed then, the ruskies know a thing or 2 about ballet :-)
Sheik
language please…
Shake, get your point. Is it after the watershed-language?
Pedro
Aye, but due to the unforeseen hot weather, there’s been a hosepipe ban.
That’ll stop them showing off!
Hail Hail
Estadio
Paul67
I visited the Moscow state circus last year and can confirm that Andrey Tikhonof was indeed one of the clowns.
Teuchter ar la
I wasn’t too sure about doing this, i post now and again and have been pretty much since the start of cqn, but my good and close friend passed away and i miss him dearly.
A diamond geezer.
This is his obituary from todays herald and well worth a read.
RIP my dear friend
George Gallacher
Musician, teacher and activist;
Born: October 21, 1943; Died: August 25, 2012.
George Gallacher, who has died aged 68 from heart failure, was known best as vocalist of The Poets, the first Scottish group to make it into the Top 20.
Sharing management with The Rolling Stones, The Poets hit the charts in October 1964 with Now We’re Thru, which introduced the band’s unique sound, a chiming, mournful mix of 12-string guitars and plaintive vocals. Great things were expected, most of all in Glasgow, where the band’s residency at the Flamingo Ballroom had built it a fanatical following. Despite a string of singles considered now as Mod and psychedelic classics, that promise was to wither on the vine, a victim of pop fashion and the band’s inability to temper its instinctive Glaswegian stridency.
But the decline did not trouble Gallacher, pictured far right. A transfixing blues vocalist of the highest order, he had never found pop particularly to his taste, preferring the raw authenticity of Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker. This love of the music of the downtrodden and the disenfranchised remained – alongside his family, his politics and Partick Thistle – at the heart of a life that was singularly selfless and principled.
He was raised in Dennistoun, just as American popular music was reaching its zenith. But other influences were equally powerful: an inherited regard for the principles of socialism and a love of football. Prodigiously gifted, he signed on as a youth player for Leicester City, aged 17. The solidarity of schoolmates won out and he became vocalist of a beat group, formed with his friends Hume Paton, Tony Myles, John Dawson and Alan Weir. They named themselves The Poets and – in an era when groups embraced gimmicks – created an appropriate look; vaguely Edwardian, with matching velvet jackets and tight trousers, and ruffled shirts intended to evoke Burns.
The band were sporting this costume when, in 1964, they appeared in Beat News, a publication covering the Scottish music scene. It caught the eye of Andrew Loog Oldham, the mercurial manager of The Rolling Stones, who was passing through Edinburgh Airport on his way to get married in Gretna. He saw the magazine, secured the singer’s address and made for Glasgow, where Gallacher lived. “It was a Sunday morning,” Gallacher would recount: “I was still in bed and my mother came in and said, ‘George, were you expecting the manager of The Rolling Stones?'”
Despite a session teaching songwriting to Keith Richards, Gallacher was too wary and conscientious to feel comfortable amid the hothouse flowers of swinging London. Estrangement deepened when Oldham withdrew from band management. The disheartened Poets regrouped but without Gallacher, who would marry Anne in 1967 and take up employment as a turner at Macdonald Pneumatic Tools in East Kilbride. Ironically, he was to work alongside the father of Jack Bruce, former Cream bassist.
Football and socialism returned to him. At the plant he became a shop steward for Militant and threw himself into the junior game, turning out for Maryhill, Pollok and Saltcoats Victoria. Again, his skills were sufficient to earn him an appraisal from Jock Stein but, in his late 20s, age worked against him. With Fraser Watson, his brother-in-law and beat group contemporary, Gallacher went on to form The Dead Loss Band, whose heavier rock sound framed lyrics exploring the politics of the far left. For fun the pair played in The Dansettes, The Blues Poets and The Nearly Men, a soubriquet that emphasised Gallacher’s wry attitude to his brush with pop stardom.
“I felt like I was almost married to the guy,” says Fraser Watson. “People thought George was a bit of a tough cookie. It’s true he never suffered fools gladly. But he had a really soft centre. He wanted to find out if you meant what you said.”
Gallacher was obliged to rethink his life a second time when in 1980 he was made redundant. He opted for teaching, completing an English and philosophy degree at the University of Strathclyde, and teacher training in five years. Qualifying at the age of 49, he worked at Hyndland and Hillhead secondaries. He cherished his time at St Roch’s in Townhead, where he was at the centre of a unit dedicated to teaching asylum seekers, many of whom remained his firm friends.
As they had done for four decades, Gallacher and Watson continued to play around the city, with their superior interpretations of the work of Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and Van Morrison. The Poets attempted a brief reunion last year, playing in Glasgow and London, though, typically principled, Gallacher felt uneasy singing about teenage love as he neared his 70s.
Their handful of shows were triumphant and some small compensation for the misfires of the 1960s. A life-long Old Firm refusenik, Gallacher was a passionate Parick Thistle supporter. Happily, on Saturday, he saw his team go to the top of the SFL, before suffering heart failure on his journey home: “My dad was many things,” says his son Fraser, “but above all he was a humanitarian, a mentor and someone who was tirelessly decent.”
He is survived by his wife Anne and sons Craig and Fraser. The funeral is at 10am on Saturday at Linn Crematorium, Glasgow.
hail hail
scotland national team
we will not
qualify
unless we get
a
guus hiddink
type manager
guus would be an incredible
celtic manager
but i like neil too much
Tony Watt for Scotland?
If most of the posters on here get their way and we sign a first choice striker, Tony Watt won’t start for Celtic, never mind Scotland.
Let’s give the bhoy a wee bit of breathing space.
And after that comment, kick ’em off the park at Moscow (except our Aiden, fair challenges will have to do!) and come away with a cheeky 0-0 or 1-1 draw! Then at Paradise blow them away!
Some bloody time to have a N A!!!!