Lisbon Lions

Lisbon Lions

We did it by playing football. Pure, beautiful, inventive football.

The Lisbon Lions is the nickname given to the Celtic team that won the European Cup at the Estádio Nacional near Lisbon, Portugal on 25 May 1967, defeating Internazionale 2–1. All but one member of the 15 man squad were born within 10 miles of Celtic Park Glasgow, Scotland. Celtic's style was the antithesis of the cynical, but highly effective, defensive style of Inter. Jimmy Johnstone described the team's style as "like the Dutch speeded-up."

Alessandro Mazzola opened the scoring for Inter with a 7th minute penalty after Jim Craig had brought down Renato Cappellini. The Italians then retreated into their famous 11-man defence. Inter did not win a single corner and forced Celtic goalkeeper Ronnie Simpson to make only two saves. Celtic had two shots off the crossbar, and 39 other attempts on goal, 13 of which were saved by Italian goalkeeper Giuliano Sarti, seven were blocked or deflected, and 19 were off-target. Craig made amends for his penalty mistake on 63 minutes, when he laid off the ball for Tommy Gemmell to fire home for the Celtic equaliser. With 83 minutes on the clock, Gemmell was allowed space, and he played the ball to Bobby Murdoch, whose long-range shot was deflected by Steve Chalmers past Sarti into the net.

Celtic were the first British club to win the European Cup, and still the only Scottish club ever to have reached the final. Celtic are one of only three clubs to have won a "Quintuple", the others being Barçelona (2009 and 2011) and Inter (2010). They reached the final again in 1970 but were beaten 2–1 by Feyenoord after extra time in the San Siro Stadium in Milan.