Celtic failed to gain closure on 25 years of hurt as they were held 1-1 by old foes Rapid Vienna in their Europa League clash at Parkhead. The home side were shocked to lose a goal to Rapid striker Nikica Jelavic after only three minutes but recovered to level in the 20th minute through Scott McDonald. However, the visitors were worth their point in a decent match between two evenly-matched sides.
Celtic find themselves bottom of Group C with one point after two games and face Hamburg at home later in the month but they would probably have swapped any possible success against the Germans for a win over Rapid.
After losing 3-1 in the first game in Vienna when the sides met in the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1984, Celtic were 3-0 up at home and in control when Rapid player Rudi Weinhofer collapsed to the ground, claiming to have been hit by a missile thrown from the terraces.
After originally fining both clubs, UEFA ordered a third game to be played after an appeal by the Austrian club.
Current Rapid boss Peter Pacult scored the only goal of the match, which was played at Old Trafford, to take his side through to the next round and the bitterness surrounding the whole episode has remained in the east end of Glasgow since.
Despite the almost hysterical hype in the lead-up to the game, however, Celtic Park was well short of its 60,000 capacity
But those who turned up left the visiting side, including a couple of thousand Rapid fans, many of whom were bare-chested, in no doubt as to their feelings.
UEFA’s ‘Respect’ campaign found no place among those supporters who displayed banners with words such as “We Still Hate Rapid”, “Unforgiven”, and ”Cheats, Liars, Conmen”. It added to an already rancorous atmosphere but the Viennese side responded with an early goal which stunned the home support.
After testing Artur Boruc with a decent header from 14 yards moments beforehand, Jelavic raced on to a pass from skipper Steffen Hofmann and rifled an angled shot past the Celtic goalkeeper and into the far corner of the net.
Rapid’s apparent desire to simply defend their lead was their downfall in the 20th minute when slack play allowed McDonald to level.
Andreas Dober’s careless pass to fellow defender Ragnvald Soma 30 yards from his goal was intercepted by the alert McDonald who raced through to arrow his low drive past Helge Payer from just inside the box.
The visitors stepped up the pace and Hofmann, the lynchpin of Rapid, drove just over from 25 yards and at the other end, on the half-hour mark, Georgios Samaras slid a tantalising pass across the Rapid six-yard box but found no takers.
Five minutes from the break Boruc produced a fine finger-tip save from Hofmann’s curling free-kick which was creeping in under the bar, then Celtic finished the half with skipper Stephen McManus heading a Danny Fox cross wide.
The second half began at break-neck speed and three minutes in, after Payer had blocked Shaun Maloney’s close-range shot, the rebound fell to McDonald whose goal-bound return was cleared off the line by the stretching Soma.
Seconds later, at the other end, as the Parkhead defence opened up, Dober had a powerful 30-yard drive saved by Boruc.
Payer then pulled off a fine save from Fox’s curling shot before Gary Caldwell ended the brief spell of pressure by directing the ball wide of the target from barely six yards out.
Celtic were on top but a moment of slackness in the home defence on the hour mark allowed Branko Boskovic to sneak behind them.
However, the midfielder’s poor effort from 16 yards trundled harmlessly to Boruc, seconds before Jelavic went down in the Celtic box under pressure from Caldwell, but referee Bruno Paixao waved play on.
Celtic boss Tony Mowbray sent Chris Killen, Barry Robson and Niall McGinn on for Maloney, Landry N’Guemo and Aiden McGeady respectively, with 10 minutes remaining but moments later it was Jelavic who headed just wide of the target from eight yards.
The Parkhead side piled forward in the closing stages looking for the winner but too often their passing was frantic rather than controlled and in the end they had to accept the point.
Celtic manager Tony Mowbray admitted to huge frustration after a 1-1 draw with Rapid Vienna kept his team bottom of Europa League Group C.
“My emotion is frustration,” Mowbray said. “We did enough to get three points but didn’t score that second goal. We pushed hard but it didn’t come. You’ve got to give them credit for defending well. The big frustration is giving them the early goal, knowing the way they play on the counter-attack.
“It was a very evident individual error. That’s football, players make mistakes and you get on with it.”
The Celtic boss was disappointed to see negative features of their recent home games against Hearts and Dundee United repeated.
“It is a concern and we have talked about it, that we have not converted enough chances,” he said. “We also have an unfortunate habit of conceding goals in the first five minutes in three home games on the bounce. Concentration is one of the things we talked about.
“But I take the positives from football. I know if we play as well as we did tonight for long spells, we’ll be fine.”
Mowbray also remained upbeat about Celtic’s qualification hopes.
“I think there’s enough evidence from tonight’s game that we can go to Vienna and give them problems and I know we can give Hapoel problems,” he said. “I don’t see why not, everything changes when you win a football match. Hamburg will be a tough test, I said all along they are probably the favourites.
“But we can still win football matches – performance levels have got to stay high, strikers have got to take chances and defensively concentration levels have got to be better than they were for the goal.”
Rapid manager Peter Pacult was delighted with the point, which keeps the Austrian team top of the group.
“I’m very happy with the result and the performance,” he said. “We fought all the way. Scottish teams always play 90 minutes at a full tempo and for us that’s difficult because in Austria we don’t play that way.
“In the second half we took on the fight and deserved the point. The atmosphere was very good and I must say, in inverted commas, I’m surprised there wasn’t any aggressive behaviour here like there was in 1984,” he said.
While the meaning of his comments were somewhat lost in translation, he elaborated further.
“The atmosphere in British stadiums is not as aggressive as it was 20 years ago,” said Pacult, whose team knocked out Aston Villa in the qualifiers. “There used to be much more enthusiasm. That’s not to say there is not enthusiasm today but football here has learned from the problems in the 1990s.
“Half the fans were not old enough to come to the stadium 25 years ago. It’s a new generation of fans.”
