Neil Lennon Live: A pizza, a punch-up and a phone call from Elton John

HE shifted uncomfortably in his seat, turning his head quickly to find an exit. It had only been 20 minutes and already Neil Lennon was ready to leave. About half an hour earlier he had idled outside to watch the crowd gather, amused by the excited chattering of those around him. But now that he was inside and the evening was underway, Lennon suddenly felt uneasy.

This was the scene the Northern Irishman described during his Big Interview just before Christmas last year – the first we have recorded in front of a live audience. Fortunately, Lennon had not been referring to his experience that night at Greenock Town Hall, but had instead been offering an insight into an evening four years earlier, when he had flown to Spain to scout FC Barcelona.

He was Celtic manager then and his team were due to play the Catalan giants in the group stages of the Champions League.

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Lennon, accompanied by his assistant Johan Mjallby, had chosen to attend a Liga match between Barcelona and Deportivo La Coruna at the Estadio Riazor, hoping to witness something rarely seen in that Barca team of 2012: weakness.

After just 18 minutes the Celtic coaches had already considered calling off their expedition – with Jordi Alba, Cristian Tello and Lionel Messi putting the visitors three goals up. But Lennon kept his vigil and was rewarded when Deportivo hit back, scoring in either half as they fell to a 5-4 defeat.

Lennon watched carefully each time Barcelona conceded a goal. He had seen a chink in their armour which his Celtic players might be able to exploit it. “Of the goals Deportivo scored, one was an own goal, one was from a corner, one was a penalty and the other was a free-kick. So, straight away, you are thinking: set plays,” Lennon says in the podcast, which we recorded live to help raise funds for Ardgowan Hospice in Greenock.

He took that little idea and turned into a tall order for Barcelona, with Celtic scoring from a set piece in both of their group matches against the Catalan side. In the Camp Nou, Charlie Mulgrew clipped a free-kick towards the front post for Georgios Samaras to nod in, while Victor Wanyama scored from a corner kick at Celtic Park.

Samaras’ goal at 1:08 in the video above shows how Celtic exploited Barca’s zonal marking in Spain, allowing the Greek to use his superior height to beat Javier Masherano in the air. “We had studied them zonally and they had  Mascherano, Xavi, [Andres] Iniesta, Jordi Alba – they didn’t have a big team,” Lennon recalls. “Take Gerard Pique out of the equation and we knew we had a chance.”

Celtic made sure that size mattered when they were defending too, closing the gaps through the middle and forcing the ball wide, leaving Barcelona to fall back on crosses to their diminutive attacking players.

That tactic had been used successfully against Barcelona in the Champions League before. Lennon found the evidence following a not-so-anonymous tip – a phone call from a certain Sir Alex Ferguson.

“Sir Alex rang me and said: ‘Look, if you want to know how to play against them then watch Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan,’ the match in 2010,” Lennon says. “They were 3-1 up from the first leg and Mourinho had world-class players like [Marco] Materazzi, [Wesley] Sneijder, [Samuel] Eto’o, Diego Milito . . . but, basically, they camped in the first third of the pitch and made Barcelona play wide. Inter forced them into crosses.

“Inter hung on and hung on – they lost 1-0 – but in the first 20 minutes the possession stats were 72 per cent to Barcelona and 18 per cent for Inter Milan. I thought that if it’s good enough for these guys, then it’s good enough for us.”

It was certainly good enough for a special night in Glasgow, inspired by their performance in Barcelona two weeks earlier. “After he lost narrowly at the Camp Nou, I told them to hold on to that feeling about how close they had been and use it as their motivation for the next game,” Lennon says.

“They had shown they were good enough to take something off that Barcelona team and, a fortnight later, they did.”

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