Dreams, despair and lottery wins to see Celtic in Seville

The prosecutor says to the witness: "Over Macho Grande?” The witness replies: "I don't think I'll ever get over Macho Grande... those wounds run pretty deep."

Since then, ‘Macho Grande’ has entered the world’s lexicon. Its official meaning is ‘an event you have witnessed that you can never get over’.

The term came flashing back into my head this week due to the beautiful game that is association football. For my Macho Grande, read Seville. Seville 2003, to be precise.

It’s 20 years since I witnessed Celtic lose 3-2 in extra time to FC Porto in the Estadio Olimpico. I’m still not over it. Those wounds run pretty deep. Even if they are purely mental and emotional, not physical or visible to the naked eye, there is still no poultice that can cleanse them.

Every now and again salt is rubbed into it and it hurts, akin to slide tackling on the black ash pitches of the early 70s and 80s. Sometimes the mention of it makes my left eye start to twitch a la Herbert Lom in the Pink Panther films.

That’s because reaching a European final is the pinnacle for any footballer. It’s equally the zenith for every supporter of every club too.

This game is for the dreamers – and I’m a football romantic. Always have been, always will be. I still crave seeing them reach another European final in my lifetime.

Tell you what, though: Celtic would have to win. Losing is not in the equation. A European final is simply no stage for losers.

Just to clarify: if somebody were to tell me right now that Ange Postecoglou would guide the Hoops to the Champions League or Europa League final in his tenure but the team would lose, I’d say thanks but no thanks. I probably wouldn’t even be that polite – I’d say ‘ram it’. I'd need to be guaranteed a result. I couldn't take the pain of losing again.

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See, Seville was everything I’d ever wanted as a Celtic fan. Before it became reality, I vividly recall phoning my dad from a bar in Florida – where I was covering the Scottish Claymores training camp for the Daily Record – because John Hartson had scored against Liverpool at Anfield to take Martin O’Neill’s side into the UEFA Cup semis.

I asked him if he wanted to go if Celtic reached the final. I allowed myself to dream.

Then, on the night of the semi-final, all those dreams came true.

I won £14,500 on a £2 bet on the daily lottery during the day. At night, Henrik Larsson scored the winner against Boavista. I broke the news to my father: we were all going to Seville. Lock, stock and two smokin’ barrels.

A friend of mine informed me that a Rangers supporter in his work was selling two tickets for £500 a whip so, in my desperation to get to the game, I paid a ‘Jimmy Shand’ for two pieces of gold dust. Courtesy of the lottery win, of course.

That same friend who secured the tickets went on to get engaged in the blistering heat of Andalucía on UEFA Cup final day.

It was all going so swimmingly… then the game happened.

People always talk about the wonderful journey O’Neill’s side embarked upon during that 2002-03 season. Knocking out Blackburn Rovers, Celta Vigo, VfB Stuttgart, Liverpool and Boavista.

I get all that. And those are memorable occasions. But I’ve always felt, like O’Neill does, that because Celtic didn’t capture the trophy… it’s not exactly rendered meaningless but it definitely skews my judgement of it all.

DVDs and a stage play depicting the various highlights from the Seville year were all well and good too. Yet all that celebration of something that was never actually achieved still rankles with me. It just doesn’t sit well.

Winning in Seville was everything to me. To O’Neill. To then-captain Paul Lambert.

The latter said it was the greatest disappointment of his career. The Champions League winner missed out on a glorious chance to add the UEFA Cup to his CV and become the proud owner of winning medals from European football’s two premier competitions.

And, on the night, if any one Celtic player deserved that medal it was Larsson. The super Swede turned in a superhuman performance. He dragged Celtic almost single-handedly up by the bootlaces not once but twice – first heading home from an acute angle before bulleting in another one.

At that point I not only lost my shape but, like 80,000 others, I made the fatal mistake of letting myself dream of the unthinkable: Larsson was anointed, he was going to score a hat-trick and the Hoops were going to win 3-2. Celtic were going to lift that big silvery trophy. The thing is, when you’re a dreamer reality has a habit of kicking you squarely in the cojones.

When Derlei scored for Porto with five minutes left of extra-time, it felt like exactly that. It was sickening. I can still see the outstretched leg of Celtic defender Ulrik Laursen trying in vain to keep the Brazilian’s drive out of the net after Rab Douglas had spilled the ball at his feet.

There is footage of Larsson holding up his silver medal in the aftermath, staring into the camera and saying: "I never came here for this." Neither did I, Henrik.

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At the final whistle, I wept. For myself mainly. My dream of seeing Celtic lift a European trophy lay in tatters.

Numerous people attempted to console me with tales of woe from the European Cup final in the San Siro in 1970. I wasn't listening. This wasn’t supposed to be our San Siro, it was meant to be our Lisbon.

I've never felt a sporting pain like it. It is the one result from any Celtic match that, given the chance, I'd change for posterity.

Not the European Cup final in 1970. Not the World Club Championship defeat or Intercontinental Cup (or whatever they call it these days) from 1967. The 2003 UEFA Cup final in Seville.

I've never watched the goals back but they are still as fresh in my mind now as they were then. I saw them once. That was enough. I don’t even look at the ticket stub.

They say that football unites in more ways than it divides. I happen to believe that is true.

I'll never forget that the first two few months post-Seville after the Porto defeat were absolute torture.

I thought about it again last season as Rangers succumbed to German Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt on penalties in the Europa League final. Ironically in Seville of all places.

Exactly two decades on and I thought I was over it. Yet 20 years on and all those memories have come flooding back.

Over Seville? You'd be as well as asking me if I'm over Macho Grande.