Gulf in class huge as Celtic struggle to cope

Barcelona 1  Celtic 0  Barcelona win 4-2 on aggregateEUROPEAN FOOTBALL has afforded Celtic their share of glory, success and finance over the years. Last night, the Champions League and Barcelona dealt the Scottish champions a harsh lesson.

Frank Rijkaard's team toyed with their visitors for long spells in demonstrating the exact size of the gulf Celtic would need to bridge before genuinely being considered one of the Continent's top sides.

The only consolation for Celtic as they head home this morning will be that at least they kept the scoreline respectable against such illustrious opposition, who seldom appeared to break sweat here.

Xavi's early strike set the tone for an elaborate training exercise on Barcelona's part, only profligacy and an apparent unwillingness to run up a higher score preventing further counters.

Victor Valdes, the Barcelona goalkeeper, could legitimately have been charged an entry fee for a game in which he took the role of spectator throughout.

Any notion that Gordon Strachan would throw caution to the wind for an encounter he had likened to climbing Mount Everest had been banished before kick-off, with confirmation that Celtic's manager had opted to deploy Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink as his team's lone striker.

Aiden McGeady and Shunsuke Nakamura, whose creative talents were conspicuous by their absence in the first leg, were expected to supply more ammunition from the flanks this time around.

Yet none of Celtic's more attacking players had so much as touched the ball by the time Barcelona opened the scoring, Xavi rounding off a typically aesthetically pleasing move - which started in the hosts' right-back position and culminated in Sylvinho crossing from the left wing - by clipping the ball over Artur Boruc from eight yards. Only 120 seconds had been played, but Celtic already had the look of a team grasping desperately for air in this most daunting of football amphitheatres.

Barcelona were not in a charitable mood, however, Samuel Eto'o coming within inches of doubling their lead after more fine overlapping from Sylvinho, the former Arsenal full-back who operated more as a winger. The remainder of the opening half offered a harsh reminder of age-old stereotypes regarding a disparity of talent between Scottish teams and their continental counterparts.

Barcelona's players exchanged passes in sequences of tens and twenties while Celtic's wastefulness on the rare occasions they could retrieve the ball at all was equally as striking. Massimo Donati was the biggest culprit, Strachan coming perilously close to substituting his Italian midfielder inside 25 minutes after Donati cheaply conceded possession on three separate occasions.

Such was the hosts' early dominance that Carles Puyol, the central defender, promptly found himself six yards from the Celtic goal, Boruc producing a fine reflex save to deny the Barcelona captain. Strachan's team, chasing shadows and in desperate need of any form of solace, would perhaps have felt relieved at the sight of a disconsolate Lionel Messi leaving the field with a hamstring injury, seven minutes from the interval, had the outstanding Argentina striker's replacement not been one Thierry Henry.

Donati's inevitable removal was confirmed during half-time, Evander Sno stepping into the fray, but the young Dutchman proved unable to stem the Catalan team's superiority. The mere sight of Scott Brown winning a 49th-minute corner, Celtic's first of the match, was sufficient to rouse a 5,000-strong travelling support into roars of delight but that foray proved far more of an exception than a rule.

Vennegoor of Hesselink, a hitherto peripheral and woefully exposed figure, was the next to exit as Georgios Samaras stepped from the substitutes' bench.

Ronaldinho, who had been less influential than at Parkhead, angled a fierce half-volley which Boruc saved high to his left on the hour mark as Barcelona sought to kill off any aspirations of the most unlikely of Celtic comebacks.

As Eto'o passed up another opportunity from close range, Celtic's fans chanted the name of Henrik Larsson, once of this parish and an idol in the green half of Glasgow; how the Swede's brilliance would have been welcomed by Strachan here.

In its absence, salvation was never a viable prospect.

BARCELONA Valdes, Zambrotta, Thuram, Puyol, Sylvinho, Toure Yaya (Edmilson 67), Xavi (Gudjohnsen 82), Deco, Messi (Henry 36), Eto'o, Ronaldinho. Subs Not Used: Pinto, Iniesta, Abidal, Bojan. Goals: Xavi 3.

CELTIC: Boruc, Wilson, Caldwell, McManus, Naylor, Nakamura, Scott Brown, Hartley (McDonald 78), Donati (Sno 46), McGeady, Vennegoor of Hesselink (Samaras 55). Subs Not Used: Mark Brown, Pressley, Robson, O'Dea.

Referee: Pieter Vink (Holland).