Like a large number of Celtic fans, prior to the match versus Barcelona, my initial hope was that Messi & Co don’t end up taking us apart and making us look silly.
Perhaps that is just me being overly pessimistic but you can’t fault me for that. I sit here writing this, drinking from a half empty glass and I thinking about how far can our team actually go.
I don’t think it was a negative hope really, probably just an educated fear of what such a good football team can do based on the opponents that they have brushed aside in the past and based on the style of football that they use to win most of their matches.
Many have deemed them to be the best ever team and few people have put forward very many arguments against that. Apart, of course, from our own beloved Lisbon Lions they must be up there with one of the best ever.
Anyway, the thought of the best team got me thinking about some of our previous teams, both good and bad. I have decided to compare our starting players v Barcelona to our starting team v Porto in the 2003 UEFA cup final and give my thoughts on how they compare to each other.
In goals, Fraser Forster v Rab Douglas, no harm to big Rab, but I think that Fraser is a more accomplished goal-keeper than Rab. When you look at Fraser v Barcelona and in other matches this season and last, I’d be quite impressed with the number of points that his saves have gained for the team. Yes, it’s squad game and the goalkeeper doesn’t win those points on his own but looking back to the Barcelona game, I think we could easily have lost had big Fraser not been in between the sticks.
For the match v Porto, we did of course play a different formation so it’s very difficult to compare like for like but moving to the defence, if we look at Jos Valgaeren, Bobo Balde and Johan Mjallby at the top of their games, would they get into the current defensive line up?
Keep in mind that we are comparing the three of them against Adam Matthews, Kelvin Wilson, Mikael Lustig Efe Ambrose. Perhaps of those four, it’s not fair to try and draw a comparison because Wilson had a difficult start but is starting to look the part now.
Lustig, for me, is starting to look a very good defender and he is restoring my faith in Swedish defenders after big Dan Majstorovic played for us but like Wilson, Lustig didn’t look great right at the start.
Matthews is a different story for me, often when we talk about players who may move on to the Premiership, Victor Wanyama and Gary Hooper are mentioned. I think Matthews is up there with both of them. He has lightning pace and not a bad throw in. For one so young (he wont be 21 until January) he can have a great career and is likely to continue to improve for a long time yet.
Moving on to the midfield, Paul Lambert, Neil Lennon, Stan Petrov, Alan Thompson and Didier Agathe are the five midfielders who started v Porto. Yes, often Agathe and Thompson played as wing backs, so again, a different style of player to that who played v Barcelona- Charlie Mulgrew, Joe Ledley, Kris Commons and big Victor.
In my opinion, there’s not very many football teams that Victor wouldn’t be able to walk into but would he have been picked ahead of a Lennon, Lambert or Petrov? If pushed, I would possibly say Lennon and that’s simply because I think Wanyama is a better threat going forward than Lennon was but equally as good at the defensive side of the game.
Pushing up to the strikers, no amount of words can describe the man that we like to call the king of kings, Mr Henrik Larsson. Outwith Jimmy McGrory have we ever had a better striker?
I am not old enough to have watched Kenny Dalglish, Charlie Nicholas, Frank McGarvey or Frank McAvennie in their prime but even those guys are not thought of as being as good as Larsson. So we will leave him aside and say that he would be the top man of the two teams.
The next question is who would partner the King, we have Chris Sutton, Georgios Samaras and Miku to choose from. Although, I think Miku had a good game v Barcelona, I haven’t been overly impressed by him since he signed so I am leaving him out of the equation.
As far as a goal scoring threat is concerned, Samaras v Sutton only brings one winner.
Of course, that is just a quick comparison of the two teams and to some perhaps an utterly pointless exercise but the reason for doing so is to think about the fact that the guys in the 2003 Uefa cup team were playing in the prime of their careers.
The current team are mainly all young guys. Like some other teams of the past, we often wonder how good they could be if they are kept together. That is, if they are playing together being more consistent and knowing one and other inside out, I have to think that the future is bright for us.
Some of you may have read my blogs before so please let me know what you think of them via the comments box below or on Twitter.
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For me only big Fraz and Matthews at RB who make it. Good point about the ‘Barca Beaters’ all having their best years ahead of them, however with the way they are progressing can you see Fraz, Joe, Vic, Effe (and Gary) all playing at CP in 5 years- I dont
Agreed it would be great 2c everyone still at celtic park next season but I would wager that after our 2 games v Barca the sharks will be hovering at celtic during all our remaining euro games. So long as we’re still in europe after xmas we should not lose any players in january howeever i think big vic will be a certainty to go next summer if he continues the way he’s going. Hopefully not but i’m being realistic here and hopefully no-one else goes either only time will tell. Lets enjoy them whilst we can!!
Fraser and Vic for me. I personally find Wanyama a better player than Lenny when he was playing in that same position as him.
one game for heavensakes and they’re world beaters .i don’t think so.
Goalkeeper would make the team, rab was bad.
Victor might make the bench,the rest no chance.
Good article mate a lot of good points
The Seville team had a bad keeper and a timebomb at centre half. MON never bothered buying a left back either. This team would have beaten Mourinho’s cheats:
Forster
Agathe
Ambrose
Mjallby
Matthews
Samaras
Petrov
Wanyama
Thompson
Sutton
Henke
No shirt for our top man then eh ?
PAUL LAMBERT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And Lennon , is he a sub ?? You drunk ???
I have to come on and defend big Rab, I agree that Forster is all round better keeper at the moment, and he’s only going to get better. But we would never have got to Seville if it wasn’t for Rab, his shot stopping displays were outstanding that season, he was never going to be the greatest keeper we have ever had but he certainly is nowhere near the worst and dont think he deserves the derision from some areas of the support.
Yeah I wud agree with you big rab gets a lot of unfair criticism and he played his part in getting us to seville however i said back then if we’d had klos as our keeper we wud av done the quadruple that season.
& yes if we’d had big fraser in his current form we wud also av done the quadruple. For me vic and fraser wud get in the team for seville & mibbee matthews or lustig at rightback i think joe ledley wud also av been a very useful player in that squad not maybe a first pick but certainly playing as often as not. Hooper wud be another one though henke and big chris first choice up front no question.
very good read my man thinking back to the night of the porto game all i can remember is how proud i was to call my self a celtic fan that night and the chants after the game of F**K THE PORTO ringing in my ears in the streets after it made me think about how some of our support cant see the good out of how far we got in 03 yeah we lost the game but in that night the better team won the match but as for the Barcelona game for me is the best celtic line up we have had in a long time even though a lot of the players are still young they have a lot of games ahead of them to get better than they are just now and i can only see good things in Celtics future for the club and for the fans……..MON RA HOOPS
Better team won the match? Better actors won the match more like
The only reason we lost the final in Seville was that Rab Douglas was the goalie. End off. Had Boruc been in goal we would have won it. Balde getting sent off didn’t help things either.
So, Rab Douglas wasn’t the only reason then!!!!!!
Only Foster. Douglas was hopeless though he made the most of the talent he had. Sadly he had a great talent for making himself as small as possible and exemplified it that night in Seville!
Useless! Is what he was. Should have stuck to bricklaying. Probably dropped more bricks on his toes than he managed to build!
Porto where a team made up off cheats every one of them Hope it does not happen next week in Lisbon
While difficult to accept, I think overall Porto deserved to win and then went on to prove their ability by winning the CL the following season.
History has shown that Porto went on to bigger & better things, continued to improve while we peaked in Seville. The Seville side entered the UEFA Cup after losing to Basel, I’d class Barcelona way above Basel.
Trying to compare sides is entertaining, but can never be quantified. Hopefully the current side can make a real mark in the CL in the coming seasons and then make everyone really think.