IT’S SEVEN AND HELL
Dembele’s early goal only provokes hefty pummelling in Paris
CELTIC’S biggest defeat in all competitions remains an 8-0 loss to Motherwell in April 1937. Shipping seven goals to Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain in an increasingly polarised and divided Champions League now raises an obvious danger. One day soon, an 80-year record could go.
This was another gruesome night for Scotland’s champions in Europe’s premier competition. Yet, there was nothing especially surprising about the final scoreline. For big fish from small ponds, it is becoming an annual exercise in survival and embarrassment. The super-rich are making a habit of putting the little people in their place.
Pre-match, the bookmakers’ odds told their own story. There were sound reasons why Celtic entered this game as distant 30/1 outsiders. A harrowing 5-0 defeat in Glasgow was one of them. Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Edinson Cavani the others.
It’s now 39 matches since Monaco, in March 2016, became the last visiting team to win at the Parc des Princes. Thirteen years since anyone flew to the French capital and won in the Champions League.
In nine home games this season, Unai Emery’s runaway train have scored 32 times, conceding just five. In Europe, they hadn’t conceded so much as a goal until last night.
What happened after 57 seconds here, then, was remarkable. Celtic scored and it had the feel of a freakish aberration.
Returning to his home city and former club, Moussa Dembele fired the visitors into the lead, rattling a low Olivier Ntcham corner high into the net. It was, in the end, a mistake. A huge error of judgment.
By the 35th minute, the visitors were 4-1 down, picked apart by the world’s most expensive forward line. Had it been a boxing match, they might have thrown in the towel there and then. The Champions League is nothing if not a brutal environment.
To have any chance here, Celtic needed their defenders to defend and their goalkeeper to make saves. On both counts, they suffered something close to a collective seizure.
Dedryck Boyata and Jozo Simunovic last formed a recognised central defensive partnership in Brussels eight weeks ago. Midfielder Nir Bitton filled the breach in the interim but his relegation to the bench didn’t last long, replacing an injured Mikael Lustig just moments after Neymar equalised with a clinical finish.
Celtic would almost certainly have lost heavily in any case. This PSG team don’t just play a different game — they’re inventing a whole new sport. Yet the Qataribacked team scored four goals from their first four shots on target. If they made the job of slicing through the visitors’ defence ridiculously easy, there may be good reasons for that. Celtic had modest expectations from the start. They hoped to keep the score to a respectable margin. To creep away with a modicum of pride and focus their energies on third place in the group. Securing European football after Christmas by seeing off Anderlecht in Glasgow in a fortnight.
Briefly — ever so briefly — they dared to harbour cautious hopes of something more.
An awful Dani Alves passback gifted them a corner. Determined to make an impression on his return home, Dembele peeled off his marker to smash Ntcham’s low set-piece through the flailing hands of Alphonse Areola.
The first goal PSG had conceded in Europe this season, the rest of the continent sat up and took notice. But it didn’t last long.
That Neymar loves a goal against Celtic is undeniable. He entered this game with five Champions League goals in five games against the side in green-and-white, and duly took his tally to seven with two in 13 minutes to wipe out Celtic’s lead. Both goals were preposterously easy affairs.
Scott Brown contributed to the first by gifting possession inside his own half to Adrien Rabiot. PSG might be the last team in need of a helping hand, the midfielder feeding Neymar for a ruthless, raking left-footed finish in off the far post.
Within minutes, Lustig was off. Bitton entered the fray in defence, but the gameplan which worked so well in the opening minutes of the game was gone. So, in essence, were Celtic.
Dembele continued to pose a threat, coming in off the left flank. A lay-off to Ntcham on 21 minutes saw his fizzing shot fly inches wide of the post. For Celtic, it was a last hoorah.
Within two minutes, Neymar had played a rapid one-two with Marco Verratti, thrashing another left-foot finish into the same corner he placed the first. Craig Gordon had no chance.
It was natural, now, to fear the worst. To suspect this was becoming the night Celtic always feared.
Cavani scraped the post with a left-foot volley. He was merely marking time before claiming his 150th goal for PSG in 29 minutes. It’s doubtful he has scored any easier, an Alves cross towards the back post headed back across goal for the Uruguayan to finish from point-blank range.
PSG’s fourth came on 35 minutes. A booking for Simunovic prompted a free-kick calamitously defended and easily finished by an unmarked Mbappe. As in Glasgow, Celtic had been undone in comprehensive fashion before half-time.
The name of the game, now, was damage limitation.
Gordon produced his first save of the game to prevent Mbappe making it five before the interval. The whistle of Greek referee Anastasios Sidiropoulos could hardly come quick enough.
Credit where it’s due. Celtic knuckled down. They dug deep.
They might even have claimed a second goal on 55 minutes, Brown breaking clear on the right before firing a first-time ball towards Dembele in the middle. One goal was unexpected, two proved beyond him. A wild effort flayed wide.
There was a rare appearance for Kouassi Eboue on 68 minutes, Ntcham leaving the field.
Yet Celtic spent the closing stages running on empty.
More comic-book defending from an Mbappe cut-back fell perfectly for Verratti to thrash the fifth goal low into the bottom corner.
The final 15 minutes were watched through the cracks of the fingers.
Cavani smashed a magnificent volley in off the base of the post from a Layvin Kurzawa cross missed by Kieran Tierney.
It went to seven within a minute, Alves thumping a 20-yard shot past a static, flailing Gordon.
An elaborately talented Parisian outfit have now broken the record for goals in a Champions League group stage, scoring 24. Precisely half of that total has come against Celtic.