Imps ready for their shop window chance

FOR the Champions League heroes from Gibraltar’s Lincoln Red Imps, Wednesday’s second leg at Celtic represents a chance to fulfil their dream of becoming professional footballers.

Players such as Jean-Carlos Garcia, who has been given a week’s leave from his job as a plumber’s mate on the Rock, or Anthony Bardon, who played for Sheffield in the Evo-Stik League.

They are up for a battle with Celtic, who are desperate to avenge a humiliating 1-0 first-leg defeat. ‘Everyone will have their eyes on this match,’ says Bardon. ‘If we can perform well, you never know. I have a year on my contract but if a club came in, I am sure Lincoln would let us go.

‘Jake Gosling at Bristol Rovers plays in the Gibraltar national team with us. He is a very good player but we have maybe five or six guys at the same level as him who could do well in League One or Two. The difference between England and Gibraltar is more style, we are much more tactically and technically aware. In England, it is more about entertainment and speed of play.’

Garcia, 24, says: ‘It’s realistic to think the lower-ranked teams in England or Scotland might be impressed by us, why not? We have dreams of making it.’

Beating Celtic would have a profound effect on the club and their squad. The players will get a £1,000 each and the club would receive €1million for reaching the third qualifying round, four times their annual wage bill.

To emphasise that they should not be overawed by Celtic, Garcia recounts a story in the tunnel before Gibralter played Germany.

‘I was shouting “Vamos! (Come On)” as we walked out, and Toni Kroos comes over and starts shouting it with me — he’d just joined Real Madrid and was learning Spanish. It proved to me it doesn’t matter how big the name is, every player is human.’