Celtic Diary Tuesday March 5

Celtic will face Dundee Utd in the semi finals of the Scottish Cup, to be played on the weekend of 13-14 April. The side ruthlessly cut down 6-2 a couple of weeks ago have .according to Scott Brown, come “into a bit of form” which shows that he hasn’t been paying attention since he went back to see the doctor.

The other semi sees Hibernian face Falkirk, and it does open up the way for a Hampdens green and white final, but it isn’t going to be easy. Dundee Utd will be eager to get some sort of revenge for the recent defeat, and Celtic will have to overcome complacency and the Hampden horrors to get through.

And thats before you take into account Hibernians habit of throwing it all away in the cup. The only way for us to be certain of a Hibs -Celtic final is for the diary to forecast a Falkirk -Dundee Utd one.

(Note , to any fans of Sevco Rangers reading this, a “semi-final” is the penultimate game in a knockout style tournament to establish one of two participants to contest the final tie. At the conclusion of the final tie a trophy is award to the team which scores the greatest number of goals.)

Theres another cup tie tomorrow night, and Celtic have graciously allowed their Italian hosts a three goal start in an effort to make the game more interesting , and to allow travelling Celtic fans an increased chance of getting a ticket for the game. In fact, Juventus will be opening up another section of the ground where hoops fans can pay at the gate. You have to hand it to Celtic, those guys think of everything.

Players, such as Joe Ledley and Victor Wanyama were queueing up to tell us that the game isn’t over yet, and all is not lost. To be honest, if these two put in a shift, then it isn’t, but it is going to need everyone else to shine as well. Sure, it won’t be easy, but its not impossible. Even if Juventus score all it means is we’ll have half an hour less to get our four.

Tony Watt, Scott Brown and Mikael Lustig won’t play, but talismanic duo Georgios Samaras and Joe Ledley will, which gives us hope.

Andrea Pirlo, possibly the only Juventus player who didn’t really cheat in the first game, well, not as much as the others, is reminding everyone that Liverpool clawed back a three goal lead to overcome Milan in a European Cup final, and he keeps harping on about the possibility of it happening again. Instead of offering cautious advice though, he’s beginning to sound like he really is worried.

Gosh, I’m glad its not us who are three up.

As ever in football, its not over until the fat lady sings. Even if she has done two rehearsals and is standing in the wings listening to the MC begin his introduction.

Whatever happens tomorrow, its been fun, and although none of us want it to end, certainly with the sour taste from the first game, we just need to get out there and remind them who we are.

Meanwhile, the adventures of Charlie and his Fiction Factory continued yesterday. Fresh from his multi million pound deals with Puma and Blackthorn cider, the bold Charles must have thought he was on a roll. He’s decided that under no circumstances will a minority of supporters tarnish “Charles Greens Rangers” (Have they changed their name again?) with their songs of hate. Oh, and he wants to sign Jon Daly, an Irishman, in what would have been a groundbreaking move for the old club, but not really an event for the new one. Incidentally, look at Lee McCullochs top , as he celebrates the new deal here

Shouldn’t he have worn this one?

Green didn’t stop there, claiming that Sevco and Celtic wouldn’t be in the SPL in five years, and that the two clubs were too big for Scottish football. Well, he’s half right…

Concluding a busy couple of days, he also said that Ibrox would be re-named for a sponsor, in line with all the other stadia belonging to the worlds biggest clubs. I can think of three, all of which have sponsors who actually paid substantial sums to build the ground-Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, there must be others, but perhaps Green was referring to Stoke, Wigan Huddersfield and Bolton, which to be fair all all big clubs , with histories and even trophies, compared to Sevco. Chalres views big time football different from the rest of us. He watches it on telly.

All this prompted our resident commentator from the darkside, Billy MacBiggott of Larkhall to issue a war cry on behalf of the bears everywhere;

“This man has persuaded us we are a new club, he has convinced us to shell out hundreds of pounds to line his pockets before christmas, he has us believing we have 500 million fans (I suppose out of that many 40 or so thousand is a minority -ed) but he will never, never stop us singing about wading knee deep in Fenian blood. and its our club, not his. we Are the Peepil!, Oh it was old and it was beautiful….etc, etc”

Another Rangers fan, David Leggat, has his own views on the whole subject. Way , way beyond reality and credibility;

leggoland

This guy used to be a full time professional journalist, and its easy to see who inspired the likes of Richard Wilson and Keith Jackson.

Lubomir Moravcik was the man who introduced cossack dancing to Celtic Park, which might surprise you. He’s been speaking fondly of his time at Celtic, and his love for the club. Which rules him out of a job in the Scottish media.

Speaking of those experts who help us understand the game, who received a knockout blow from a Brazilian free kick, which sadly affected his thought process for years to come?