Daily Record

Hoops dive in at the deep end and wind up in troubled waters

UEFA will follow Neymar in hammering Celts

- Sport@dailyrecor­d.co.uk

ON reflection Celtic should have known their luck was always going to be out.

If you really must be plunged back into Europe’s deep end then the very last man you want to see standing on the diving board is Neymar da Silva Santos Junior.

As p***ing contests go, this was always likely to be a no-win situation for Scotland’s champions up against a team with the biggest Brazilian budgie smugglers that oil money can buy.

But what it became – in no time at all – was a humbling and, yes, eventually a humiliatin­g experience back in the biggest pool of them all.

Neymar opened the scoring then set up the second and from that moment there would be no way back for Celtic who suffered on their home soil like never before.

No sooner had they allowed themselves to be intoxicate­d by UEFA’s theme music than they were sobering up in the face of a fast-growing French phenomenon which was busy taking them to the cleaners with ridiculous ease.

And to compound it all, before the hangover had even kicked in after the loss of a third first-half goal, they suffered the indignity of having their pitch invaded and image trashed by one of their own supporters.

This brainless wonder aimed a swipe at Kylian Mbappe but got not closer to making contact with the French teenager than any of Brendan Rodgers’ defenders had managed during a chastening opening period.

Given Celtic’s crime sheet with UEFA’s disciplina­ry department over recent years, the club may well be forced to pay a heavy price for this act of buffoonery.

As if they were not made to suffer quite enough last night when memories of that sevengoal thrashing in Barcelona a year ago came rushing back like a recurring nightmare.

That Rodgers and Celtic have come such a long way together since that annihilati­on merely added to the feeling of hopelessne­ss and inadequacy as Paris St Germain flexed their Qatari-bought muscle to truly devastatin­g effect.

The style and ease with which they inflicted this agony upon Celtic was perhaps the biggest shock of all. It was a nasty experience these players will be in hurry to forget.

Rodgers had some work of his own to do in the hours before kick-off, most notably how best to construct a defence capable of withstandi­ng the firepower of the most costly attack ever assembled in the history of football.

His solution to this conundrum? He wheeled out a teenage tank in the shape of Anthony Ralston – a European novice – and put him directly up against the most expensive player on the face of the planet.

What a call this was. What an endorsemen­t for young Ralston who was being delivered here into his own personal dreamland.

And what a brave move from a manager who left Nir Bitton on the bench despite previously trying to convince the world – and probably the Israeli himself for that matter – that he really is equipped to operate as a centre-half at this level.

The truth of the matter is not even Rodgers believed Bitton could live in this company which is why the normally reliable Mikael Lustig was shifted into a central position, with Ralston slotting in for the Swede at right-back.

The youngster can mark this one down as a lesson learned. Albeit a sore one.

The heavens had opened around two hours before kick-off and what came tumbling down from the skies above Glasgow was every bit as relentless as the onslaught Celtic received from these A-lister house guests.

The hope, of course, was that these flamboyant, sophistica­ted Parisians might somehow deem this trip to Glasgow’s east end to be beneath them. That they simply might not fancy slumming here in this city’s comparativ­e drabness and for that matter in the driving Scottish rain. Surrounded as they were by 60,000 screaming banshees.

That they might suddenly wake up in the middle of this dripping-wet hostility and wonder what on earth they had done to deserve it. Any of it.

Unlikely perhaps. But they wouldn’t be the first visitors to feel so far away from home at this place. In this vortex of stadium which has gobbled up and spat out so many before them.

Alas, no such luck. Rather, PSG came swaggering out as if they owned the place and why not? They own just about everything else after all.

And now here they were, claiming Celtic Park for themselves too. After a fraught opening 19 minutes for the home side – during which Edinson Cavani had an opening goal correctly flagged offside – Neymar wriggled onto the wrong side of Ralston for the first time and from that moment, in every conceivabl­e way, the result was inevitable.

A second goal followed in 33 minutes when Mbappe fired home from Neymar’s knock down at the back post and Cavani made it 3-0 from the spot before half-time after being fouled by Jozo Simunovic.

In truth the gulf in class was so wide it could have been five or six before Celtic escaped to the sanctuary of the dressing room at half time.

That PSG scored only twice more late on in the second half – an ugly Lustig own goal and a Cavani header of such beauty they could hang it in the Louvre this morning – was no more than the merest of mercies for Celtic.

This was a painful reintroduc­tion to the pool of hard knocks for a team which must now attempt to stay afloat in Group B and prove it is not out of its depth at this level. CELTIC’S kids were edged out in a rollercoas­ter UEFA Youth League clash in Dumbarton.

And it was Timothy Weah, son of striking legend George, who grabbed the PSG winner.

The young Scots got the breakthrou­gh their excellent pressing play merited after 13 minutes.

Jack Aitchison was fouled in the box and captain Regan Hendry netted the spot-kick.

PSG were level before the break when an Alec Georgen cross found Metehan Guclu in the area and the big striker headed in off the post.

Eight minutes after the restart Celtic were back in front. A 20-pass move was capped by Ewan Henderson playing it through to Aitchison who stroked the ball home.

Celtic then won another penalty as Aitchison was again fouled. This time Hendry’s penalty was saved, as was the rebound. Ewan Henderson tried for a third attempt that crashed off the post.

The French side levelled again when sub Virgiliu Postolachi latched on to a long kick-out that was missed by Robbie Deas and scored.

PSG got the winner after 65 minutes when a pinpoint cross was headed home by Weah.

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