Wednesday 29 July 2015 15:29, UK
As part of the ongoing ‘My Greatest Game’ series, Soccer Saturday pundit Charlie Nicholas discusses the highlight of his professional playing career.
A Celtic legend, Nicholas was part of the Bhoys side that defeated Ajax in the 1982/83 European Cup, in the process scoring the goal of his career.
Celtic had held the Dutch heavyweights to a 2-2 draw in the first leg of the first-round tie at Celtic Park, but faced the prospect of travelling to Amsterdam knowing their opponents had two away goals in the bag.
Nicholas got the ball rolling against a team including Johan Cruyff and Jan Molby, beating two defenders before producing a remarkable chip over goalkeeper Piet Schrijvers.
"Johan Cruyff is the greatest European footballer I've ever seen."
Ajax equalised through Gerald Vanenburg shortly after, but thanks to George McCluskey’s late goal and Pat Bonner’s goalkeeping heroics, the Scottish side progressed to the next round.
Nicholas speaks about Cruyff – “the greatest European footballer I’ve ever seen” – while discussing a magical night in the Netherlands.
“Pat Bonner was in goal and it was a special, special night for him. He had an amazing game. The atmosphere was quite weird because Ajax were expected to dump us out. When we went 1-0 up, it was a hard night for them.
“Although we were away against one of the giants of European football at the time, it was still a passing game and an attacking game. It was a case of ‘go out and play, see where it gets us’.”
