Celtic no match for ruthless Juventus

Celtic need a football miracle if they are to rescue their Champions League hopes after succumbing to a ruthless Juventus side in the first leg of their last-16 clash at Parkhead.

Juve striker Alessandro Matri rocked the Hoops with a third-minute goal only for Neil Lennon's side to battle back ferociously in a breathless encounter where, at times, the visiting penalty box resembled a wrestling ring.

However, despite their best efforts, the Scottish champions were hit by a sucker-punch in the 76th minute when midfielder Claudio Marchisio grabbed a second on the counter before striker Mirko Vucinic grabbed a third in the 83rd minute.

Celtic had beaten Barcelona and Spartak Moscow in the group stages in finishing second to the Catalans to reach the knockout stages for the first time in five seasons.

Lennon had predicted the "thunder" would be back in the east end of Glasgow for the visit of the Serie A champions and indeed the decibel levels were off the scale as both sides emerged from the tunnel.

Some home fans would have been surprised to see defender Efe Ambrose in the starting line-up.

Celtic defender played for Nigeria in their 1-0 African Nations Cup final win over Burkina Faso on Sunday evening and did not arrive back in Glasgow until this morning.

Emilio Izaguirre shrugged off a knee injury to take his place at left-back in a 4-5-1 formation, while winger James Forrest returned after recovering from a hamstring complaint, although Georgios Samaras failed to recover from the same injury.

A strong Juventus side in a 3-5-2 formation included star midfielder Andrea Pirlo, the main support behind a front two of Matri and Vucinic.

In the other match, Adil Rami popped up with a crucial stoppage-time strike to hand Valencia a lifeline in their Champions League last-16 tie against Paris St Germain at the Mestalla.

PSG looked on course for a dream result as first-half goals by Argentinian duo Ezequiel Lavezzi and Javier Pastore put Carlo Ancelotti's men firmly in the driving seat, but their hopes of reaching the quarter-finals suffered a setback in the space of two wild minutes at the end of the contest.

First Rami stole in behind the defence to reduce the arrears for Los Che before PSG's talismanic striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic was sent off for aiming a stamp at Andres Guardado.

The red card means Ibrahimovic is suspended for the return leg along with defensive midfielder Marco Verratti, who picked up his third booking of the campaign.

PSG's late implosion took the shine off an otherwise impressive performance by Ancelotti's troops.

Certainly the watching David Beckham, who recently joined PSG on a five-month deal but was not in the squad today due to a lack of match fitness, will have been encouraged by what he saw.