Hartson Getting a goal in Barca’s backyard will be one to tell the grandkids
Moussa Dembele enjoyed an Old Firm debut he’ll never forget thanks to a perfect hat-trick at Parkhead yesterday.
Now Celtic legend John Hartson has urged all of Brendan Rodgers’ new recruits to create moments that will last forever when they take to the Nou Camp pitch on Tuesday night.
The ex-Parkhead striker still smiles at the mere mention of his Champions League strike 12 years ago when the Hoops held a star-studded Barcelona side to a 1-1 draw in Catalunya.
Hartson doesn’t remember every single one of the 109 goals he scored during five seasons at the club.
However, the ex-Wales international will never forget that November night.
He said: “There’s no time for the new players to be bedding in – this is the Champions League, these are the games you tell your grandkids about.
“No disrespect to Motherwell or Kilmarnock, I can’t remember my hat-tricks against them. But I remember my goal in Barcelona. These are the games and the goals you live for.”
It’s not just Hartson who remembers the goal with fondness – his father got plenty of mileage out of it too.
Hartson said: “He still tells the story of me scoring in Barcelona with 90-odd thousand there, including my dad.
“Samuel Eto’o scored for them then I equalised. With my dad there up in the skies with the Celtic fans, he took a photo of the scoreboard as it said, ‘Barcelona 1, Eto’o; Celtic 1, Hartson’.
“In Swansea the next morning he was showing all the lads over breakfast, ‘Look what my lad did’. He was so proud.
“To have scored at the Nou Camp is one you can tick off. Not many Welshmen have done that either. It gave us an important point in the Champions League when we couldn’t buy a point on the road.”
The argument could be made that Barcelona have more threats in their team now, particularly with the attacking trio of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez.
But Hartson has told the Hoops players to forget about the Spaniards being an unstoppable force – because Celtic have heard it all before and still taken points.
He said: “Nobody fancied us then, nobody fancies us at all now.
“But we do have the knowledge that we have taken results off this great team in the past.
“You have to learn to ignore the crowd and the size of the stadium because you can get overawed and think, ‘ What am I doing here?’.
“Sometimes you might feel like you want to get your phone out and take a picture of it. But you can’t. You need to keep the head, focus on the game and get a result.”