Almost There

Celtic 1 - Manchester United 1
Scorers
Celtics: McDonald (13)
Manchester United: Giggs (84)

Team: Foster, Rio, Vidic, O'Shea, Rafael (Evra 66), Fletcher, Carrick, Nani (Berbatov 45), Ronaldo, Giggs, Tevez (Rooney 71)

A victory at Celtic Park would have seen us thru to the next round of the Champions League, but Ferguson, with the massive weekend fixture against Arsenal in mind, put out a light weight strikeforce. Add to the fact that Celtic have an incredible record at Celtic Park. Moreover it didn't help that we were wearing our blue away Champions League jersey. It's the colour of Celtic's fiercest rivals, Rangers, and in cheeky sort of way on our part, gave them all the motivation to put one over us. Despite that, the irony brought out a few chuckles.

We started the game well enough, without actually troubling the Scottish defence. Like the game in Old Trafford a fortnight back, Celtic didn't look like any threat. Yet on the 13th minute, they took the lead. Poor marking and bad positioning by Foster allowed McDonald the time and space to float the ball into the corner of the net. It was a beautifully weighted ball and quite a brilliant goal.

The only threat from our part came almost entirely from corners. Barring the last game against Hull City, we're woeful with corners. Yet today we came close everytime we had corners. Sadly, apart from the set pieces, the Celtic defence held firm.

The game plan of resting our key players for the weekend was thrown awry. We brought on Berbatov, and subsequently Rooney to boaster the attack but to no avail. Celtic parked 11 men behind the ball and for the longest time looked like repeating the same feat the last time we visited them.

Just when United heads were begining to droop, Ronaldo fired a long shot that Boruc could only parry. Giggs was the first to react and pounced on the rebound to equalize. After totally dominating the second half, it was a well deserved goal. We did press on in the final minutes, but the scores stood level.

Given the circumstances, it was a good result. Villarreal also drew at Aalborg. With a home game against the lesser fancied Danes, we should qualify for the second round without much trouble.

We can now concentrate on the domestic games, starting with beating the gooners this weekend.