By MARK WALKER
Tel: 07802 438556
INTER MILAN legend Tarcisio Burgnich insists the Italians will finally gain revenge for their loss to the Lisbon Lions when they face Celtic in the Europa League.
The Hoops face a rematch of their famous 1967 European Cup Final in Portugal when the two sides meet in the Last 32 tie in February.
Hardman defender Burgnich played in the Final and went on to make over 350 appearances for Inter and won 66 caps for Italy.
And the 75-year-old is still gutted Celtic became the first ever British side to win the European Cup 47 years ago.
He said: "It's a good draw. The Celtic of today are not the Celtic of our times. They are not a team with top players.
"Scottish teams have a good spirit, but are struggling these days and are certainly not the best in European football.
"Teams from Scotland were very, very strong, but they don't have the same quality as they had back when I played.
"For the Final in Lisbon, I knew we would be in trouble because we were missing Luis Suarez, our midfielder, who was the key to our team.
"Celtic should have won by more goals.Our keeper Giuliano Sarti made save after spectacular save in the second half.
"We even joked with him to let them score just to relieve the pressure on us!
"I remember the Scots as being particularly aggressive and a good team.
"But it would be nice to beat Celtic now."
However,Burgnich - who marked Pele in the 1970 World Cup Final against Brazil - isn't hugely impressed by Roberto Mancini's side either.
He said: "Inter have good players, but they just don't have too many who can actually make the difference.
"Bayern Munich have maybe five players who can change a game, Inter have none.
"Mancini needs to use the January transfer market to sign players - a quality central midfielder for a start."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article