da bet esporte： Celtic Football Club sadly announced on Thursday that one of the club’s greatest ever players, Tommy Gemmell, had passed away at the age of 73.
da betway： Over a ten year career at the club, spanning 418 appearances, Gemmell was an integral part of Celtic’s incredible European Cup triumph in 1967 when 11 local lads from Glasgow and the surrounding area destroyed a world famous Inter Milan side to become the first team from Northern Europe to lift the big cup in Lisbon. That trophy was just one of a number of successes in his time at Celtic, winning an incredible 14 major honours with the Hoops.
He was a pioneer of his time in his position of left-back, the archetype for the modern attacking full-back. Together with Jim Craig on the opposite flank and the rest of the Lisbon Lions, Celtic unleashed a new form of attacking football against the ultra-defensive Inter in that ’67 final, ushering in an era of expansive and exciting football, a legacy that lives on today.
Gemmell possessed one of the finest shots in Celtic history, able to generate a power and precision that must have left goalkeepers quaking in their boots. He scored an incredible 63 goals, including some of the most important in the entire history of Celtic.
A true Lisbon Lion, a Celtic legend and a wonderful footballer.
We celebrate his incredible career with four iconic moments that live on in the hearts and minds of Celtic supporters everywhere…
The goal that started it all
Celtic made their European Cup debut on 28th September 1966 when Swiss champions FC Zurich side made the trip to Glasgow to face the Bhoys in front of 50,000 people. Given how events transpired in Lisbon, it seems fitting that the great Tommy Gemmell scored Celtic’s first ever goal in the competition.
What a goal it was too. Taking the ball from the halfway line he surged into the Zurich half and walloped one from a full 35 yards to give Celtic a vital lead halfway through the second half.
It was to be one of three goals he scored across the two-leg tie, also scoring twice in the away leg, helping Celtic towards a 5-0 aggregate victory.
A physical game against defensive opponents, it was always going to take something special to break the deadlock and the power that Gemmell possessed in his shot became a key weapon in Jock Stein’s time at the club when all else failed.
The goal that changed everything
Defensive football was the dominating philosophy in the 1960s, Helenio Herrera’s ‘catenaccio’ had already inspired Inter Milan to European Cup victories in 1964 and 1965, so when Celtic conceded an early penalty in the 1967 final and went 1-0 down, all hope was lost that they could come away with the victory.
As we know though, Jock Stein’s Lisbon Lions had other plans.
You only have to look at the stats for the 1967 European Cup Final to understand what a momentous occasion it was in the history of the game: 42 shots, 24 on target, 10 corners. Stein masterminded the downfall of ‘catenaccio’ and while it would survive into the 70s before ultimately being destroyed by the famous Dutch ‘Total Football’, all roads lead back to Lisbon and Celtic’s greatest ever triumph.
Tommy Gemmell was key to it all. He had multiple shots on goal in the opening minutes of the game and burst forward to support his teammates as they peppered Giuliano Sarti’s goal in search of an equaliser.
Then he scored the goal that changed everything. Committing himself forward, perhaps boldly, as Celtic right-back Jim Craig also advanced, he ran onto Craig’s lay-off and smashed home perhaps the greatest and certainly the most important goal in the Hoops’ history.
As Gemmell explains himself in the video above: “Some folk said that if there hadn’t been a net they might’ve caught the ball in Paris.”
The greatest night since Lisbon
By the time the 1969/70 European Cup campaign rolled around, Celtic were already well known as one of the greatest teams in Europe. Shockingly they would go out in the first round of the European Cup when attempting to make their defence of the trophy but in 68/69 they would reach the Quarter-Finals the next season and were well poised to be make significant inroads into the competition as the new decade dawned.
Their Second Round draw couldn’t have been much tougher. Benfica were one of the most celebrated European sides of the 1960s reaching five European Cup finals, winning two of them. However, Eusebio and his team of Portuguese giants visited Celtic Park and received a merciless beating, providing Celtic with their greatest moment of glory since that Lisbon triumph.
Tommy Gemmell was again at the heart of it, rocketing home a thumping shot from a Bertie Auld lay-off in just the second minute of the game. It set the tone for the entire evening and Benfica would escape with a 3-0 defeat, for it could’ve been more.
In the return leg Benfica would repay the favour with a 3-0 victory of their own and in those days that prompted a coin toss, which Celtic duly won to take their place in the next round on their way to another European Cup Final. However, it was the first leg, one of Gemmell’s greatest games, that really gave the team belief they could repeat their 1967 triumph.
One night in Milan
After overcoming Benfica, Celtic had to beat Leeds United and Fiorentina to take their place in the 1970 final against Feyenoord in Milan. The Bhoys were the favourites this time and got themselves thanks to another Tommy Gemmell wonder goal, lashing home a shot from 25 yards.
Gemmell became the first British player to score in two European Cup finals and is one of only two to have done it to this day, the other being Phil Neal of Liverpool.
However, Feyenoord were the better team across the 90 minutes and into extra-time, eventually wearing down a beleaguered Celtic defence to win 2-1 on the night and kickstart an era of Dutch dominance in the game into the 1970s.
Tommy Gemmell’s legacy and accomplishments at Celtic are massive despite this loss and it’s another goal that defines his importance to what was the greatest Hoops team of all-time.
It’s a legacy that will live on, beyond his sad passing. Stories and videos and tales and memories will be passed down from generation to generation of Celtic supporters and Tommy Gemmell’s name will forever be a prominent part of that.