THIS season's UEFA Champions
League draw saw Celtic paired
with Ajax for the fourth
competitive meeting between the
sides.
The sides first met in 1971, with Celtic
losing 3-1 on aggregate. But the next
two meetings were more successful for
the Hoops, winning 4-3 (1982) and 3-2
(2001) on aggregate,
Celtic will be looking to make it a
treble against the Dutch side this
season, and will begin their quest this
evening, when they face them for the
first time in this year's tournament,
And if history is anything to go by,
there are sure to be goals, drama and
lots of excitement,
1970/71
European Cup quarter-final
First leg, March 10,1971
AJAX 3 (Cruyff, Hulshoff, Keizer)
CELTIC 0
European Cup quarter-final
Second leg, March 24,1971
CELTIC 1 (Johnstone)
AJAX 0
CELTIC had already knocked out
Finnish side, Kokkola, 14-0 and Irish
side, Waterford, 10-2 on aggregate before
drawing Ajax in the quarter finals of
the European Cup, It was the first time
the sides had met in a competitive tie
and the Hoops were to go home
empty-handed.
A place in the semi-finals of the
tournament they had won only four
seasons previous was up for grabs,
but they lost out 3-2 on aggregate,
The Dutch side proved to be too strong
for Jock Stein's men in the end, putting
three past them in Amsterdam's Olympic
Stadium, Johan Cruyff opened the scoring
just after the hour mark, before Barry
Hulshoff added a second shortly after. Piet
Keizer added a killer third in the closing
seconds of the match, making it extremely
difficult for Celtic in the return leg,
Jimmy Johnstone did find the net in the
home leg played at Hampden, scoring
after just 28 minutes, In typical Celtic
style though, they didn't give up until
the final whistle and continued to throw
men forward in the closing stages of the
match.
John Hughes had a goal disallowed for
offside 10 minutes from the end, but Ajax
saw out the game to eventually reach the
final, where they would win the first of
three consecutive European Cups,
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24 Celtic v Ajax
