Celtic legend Jim Craig reflects on the 1967 European Cup final against Inter, telling Football Italia conceding early “was the best thing that could have happened”.
The team now known as ‘The Lisbon Lions’ beat Helenio Herrera’s ‘Grande Inter’ side to become the first British side to lift the European Cup.
That Nerazzurri team conquered Italy and Europe with their ‘catenaccio’ style, so conceding a penalty to them after seven minutes was a daunting prospect.
Celtic legend Jim Craig reflects on the 1967 European Cup final against Inter, telling Football Italia conceding early “was the best thing that could have happened”.
The team now known as ‘The Lisbon Lions’ beat Helenio Herrera’s ‘Grande Inter’ side to become the first British side to lift the European Cup.
That Nerazzurri team conquered Italy and Europe with their ‘catenaccio’ style, so conceding a penalty to them after seven minutes was a daunting prospect.
“I did worry, particularly because I was the one who gave away the penalty!” Jim Craig, who played right-back in that side, told Football Italia as he launched a special whisky to commemorate the triumph.
“In actual fact it was the best thing that could have happened, because they immediately went back into the catenaccio style which meant that we got all the possession and dominated play.
“For the whole of the rest of the first half we were totally in control.
“The one man that the boss, Jock Stein, had said might be a weak link in their team was the goalkeeper [Giuliano Sarti] who turned out to have the game of his life and stopped everything!
“Then of course in the second half we got the equaliser. People say the plan had gone to pieces by that time because we had two full-backs up when one should have been up and one should have been back.
“When you’re 1-0 up for most of a game you’ve dominated and there’s not long to go everybody’s panicking a wee bit and that’s why the system went to pieces!
“I set up the equaliser for Tam [Tommy Gemmell]. Really since I was there Tam shouldn’t have been there, but as I said by that time things are getting to the stage where we’ve got to get this equaliser one way or another.
“After we got the equaliser I was totally sure we would win. All the other guys have said the same, at that point they were sure we were going to win.”
Craig was playing on the right flank, coming up against Nerazzurri legend Giacinto Facchetti, who had scored 12 goals from left-back the previous season.
“Well we’d gone into the game in quite some detail and one of the things that happened after they got the penalty – through that idiot! – was that immediately
Facchetti became a defending player and wasn’t coming forward.
“So I really had a free reign down that side, wee Jimmy [Johnstone] was given a great deal of space.
“Quite tightly marked once you got near the goal, but we got a lot of space to work in on that side.
“The problem was that despite us making all those chances the ‘keeper was having one of those days you dream about, and stopping every bloody thing that came towards him!
“So at half-time the boss just told us to keep going, didn’t say a word about me giving away the penalty – he did at time-up by the way, but he didn’t say it at half-time!”
Facchetti passed away in 2006, but Lisbon wasn’t the final time he and Craig’s paths crossed.
“He was a nice man too, he died a few years ago,” Craig recalls.
“I met him at the 2002 European Cup final at Hampden when Real Madrid played Bayer Leverkusen.
“He was there that night and I got a nice photograph taken with him and by that time his English was pretty good – better than my Italian anyway!
“So we had a chat about the game. But of course, although we did that in 1967, in 1972 they beat us at Celtic Park in the semi-final of the European Cup.
“After 90 minutes at the San Siro and 90 minutes at Celtic Park it was 0-0 and after another 30 it was still 0-0.
“Then it went to the first penalty shoot-out for Celtic and we got beaten 5-4 and Facchetti was playing that night too, and I met him that night as well.
“It was an amazing story that night. The day before we’d had a penalty shoot-out competition at Seamill [Hydro, a hotel].
“Dixie Dean won it out the park, by far and away the best. He wasn’t playing in the game, he came on as a substitute and then the order was given and Dixie was going to take the first penalty… and he missed.
“He was the only one of 10 players who missed.
“I asked him afterward what happened. He sent it over the crossbar, and he was going to put it to the ‘keeper’s lower left hand corner.
“As he went to kick the ball he saw the ‘keeper [Lido Vieri] slightly move that way so he decided to lift it and lifted it right over the crossbar.
“Never change your mind, if he’d hit it hard it probably would have escaped the ‘keeper anyway.”