Barcelona 1
Xavi 4
Celtic 0
Barcelona 1 Celtic 0 (4-2 agg) March 04 2008
Celtic crashed out of the Champions League after a narrow but deserved defeat by Barcelona in the second leg of their last-16 clash in the Nou Camp.
The Catalan club had led 3-2 from the first match in Glasgow and Xavi's goal from a Sylvinho cross after three minutes had the Hoops on the ropes.
Gordon Strachan's side were reduced to a containment exercise for the rest of the match as the home side cruised into the quarter-finals on a 4-2 aggregate with plenty to spare.
The gulf in class between the two sides was evident in both legs of the tie but the Hoops can feel no embarrassment at losing out to a side packed with a wonderful array of talent, even if it was not exactly in full throttle in this match.
Celtic, who had been knocked out at the last-16 stage by AC Milan last season, knew they had to win their first away game in the competition if they were to go through to the quarter-finals.
Barca had rung the changes from the side that delivered such exciting fare in the first leg but the attacking prowess of Lionel Messi, Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto'o promised another tough test for the Scots side and that was the story of the first half which started in disaster for Gordon Strachan's men.
A relatively sparsely populated Nou Camp went into raptures in the third minute after playmaker Xavi fed Ronaldinho on the left-hand side of the Celtic penalty area.
The Brazilian flicked the ball on to the overlapping Sylvinho and when he cut the ball back, he found that Xavi had continued his run to flick the ball past Hoops keeper Artur Boruc.
The tie was effectively over with that strike but Celtic managed to contain Barca for the remaining 87 minutes and could even have grabbed an equaliser at the start of the second half through Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink's header.
Boruc had to make saves from Ronaldinho, Carlos Puyol, Deco and Eidur Gudjohnsen, though, as Barca dominated the rest of the game.