UEFA Cup third round, first leg: Celtic 3; FK Teplice 0: Celtic toyed with their followers and their own serenity as well as Teplice. They took an early 2-0 lead, yet only killed off the tie in stoppage time when Henrik Larsson claimed his second goal by heading in a Stilian Petrov corner.
Progress to the last 16 can be expected, but there were bland periods that left spectators grateful to have had their memories jogged of the true meaning of European occasions.
Beforehand, the FIFA president Sepp Blatter presented a fair play award in honour of the 80,000 Celtic supporters who had gathered in Seville and behaved with warm goodwill at last year's UEFA Cup final. Having witnessed the crowd that formed to take Celtic Park close to its capacity on a bitter night, Blatter might now be tempted to hand out medals for devoted service as well.
In essence, those spectators had made their way to the East End of Glasgow as an exercise in mass willpower. A conviction is being nursed that the club can return to the final again in May and the opposition, discourteous and even unwise as it may sound, were a secondary consideration.
Teplice had reached this stage with wins over Kaiserslautern and Feyenoord, yet hard as Celtic scrutinised the videos of those remarkable matches there was little to be learned. The Czech club has had to sell key players in the winter break and they have been replaced with men of lesser calibre.
The coach, Frantisek Straka, who scarcely needed further tests of his crisis management, is also confronted by a lengthy injury list which meant he could muster only a quintet of substitutes, two of whom are not fully fit themselves. Morale could be something of a worry as well for a team without a win in the Czech league since September.
They certainly opened up last night with an advert for their own vulnerability. One player passed cluelessly, another miskicked and the goalkeeper fumbled in the first few seconds. In the circumstances, a goal for Celtic in the third minute felt tardy. Alan Thompson slipped a pass behind the back four and Henrik Larsson scampered through to finish.
The lead was increased nine minutes later when Tomas Hunal was short with a header and Chris Sutton beat goalkeeper Tomas Postulka to the ball before firing into the unattended net. However, considering the expectation raised of a speedy rout, events did not go wholly to plan.
Celtic have established a certain reputation in Europe and now they are realising it can be awkward to live up to the billing.
CELTIC: Douglas, Agathe, Balde, Varga, McNamara (Valgaeren 87), Petrov, Lambert, Pearson (Sylla 72), Thompson, Larsson, Sutton. Subs Not Used: Marshall, Hartson, Wallace, Beattie, Kennedy. Booked: Thompson. Goals: Larsson 3, Sutton 12, Larsson 90.
FK TEPLICE: Postulka, Dolezal, Rada, Hunal, Leitner, Ryska, Verbir, Skala, Tesarik, Kowalik (Rilke 45), Masek. Subs Not Used: Patrik Kolar, Sigmund, Kuchar, Horvath. Booked: Skala, Rilke, Tesarik.
Referee: Konrad Plautz (Austria).
