On 25 May 1967, at the Estádio Nacional in Lisbon, Celtic beat Inter 2-1 and became the first British team to win the European Cup. On 25 May 2027 it will be 60 years since that afternoon. Their players went down in history as the "Lisbon Lions".

Two very different roads

Celtic beat Zürich 5-0 and Nantes 6-2. In the quarter-finals they lost 1-0 at Vojvodina, their only defeat in the competition, and went through thanks to a 90th-minute goal by captain Billy McNeill in the return leg. In the semi-final they knocked out Dukla Prague 3-1 on aggregate.

Inter had lifted the trophy in 1964 and 1965 and were the big favourites. They knocked out Torpedo Moscow, Vasas and Real Madrid, 3-0 on aggregate. Against CSKA Sofia they needed a third match, in Bologna, to go through.

Catenaccio against attack

Helenio Herrera, reported at the time to be the best-paid coach in Europe, had built Inter on defensive catenaccio. In Lisbon, however, he was missing Luis Suárez and Jair, and his team had lost the league title in the final weeks.

Jock Stein promised that Celtic would attack as never before. His team had already won the league, the Scottish Cup, the League Cup and the Glasgow Cup that season. The only absentee was injured centre-forward Joe McBride.

Around 45,000 spectators filled the Estádio Nacional, among them many Celtic fans who had travelled to Portugal. The referee was West German Kurt Tschenscher.

Stripes, horizontal and vertical

The two shirts could not be confused. Celtic wore their classic green-and-white horizontal stripes, the "hoops", with white shorts. Inter appeared in their blue-and-black vertical stripes and black shorts.

There is also a detail collectors love. In those years Celtic put no numbers on the back, so as not to "spoil" the hoops, and the numbers were sewn onto the shorts. After the final whistle some players were left without a shirt, because the fans who had run onto the pitch took them.

The match: from the penalty to the comeback

Inter took the lead very early, around the 7th minute, when Jim Craig brought down Renato Cappellini and Sandro Mazzola converted the penalty. From then on the Italians retreated into their own box. Celtic pressed relentlessly, goalkeeper Giuliano Sarti made save after save and the woodwork helped as well.

The equaliser came in the 63rd minute. From a Craig pass, Tommy Gemmell struck a powerful shot from about 25 yards that left Sarti no chance.

In the 84th minute Bobby Murdoch tried from distance and Stevie Chalmers diverted the ball in for 2-1. He and his team-mates later said they had worked on it in training.

Eleven lads from Glasgow

Celtic's eleven were Simpson, Craig, Gemmell, Murdoch, McNeill, Clark, Johnstone, Wallace, Chalmers, Auld and Lennox. All of them were born within about 30 miles of Glasgow. The one from "furthest away" was Bobby Lennox, from Saltcoats.

Bill Shankly, Liverpool's legendary manager, told Stein after the final that he was now immortal. Stein himself stressed that the win came through pure, beautiful and inventive football.

Stein was later made a CBE, and a stand at Celtic Park now bears his name. Alex Ferguson has said this final is one of the reasons he considers him the greatest Scottish manager.

Why it went down in history

Celtic became the first team from northern Europe to win the trophy. It was also the first final since 1956 without an Iberian side. Many saw it as a victory of attacking football over catenaccio.

The pitch invasion was so big that the presentation could not take place on the field. McNeill was escorted under armed guard around the outside of the stadium to the stand to lift the cup. For Inter, that defeat is seen as the end of "La Grande Inter".

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Photo: Jock Stein in Amsterdam, March 1971 – Anefo, Nationaal Archief, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC0.