On This Day: Celtic's Lisbon Lions gave birth to attacking football mantra

In 1755 a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Lisbon with reverberations that were felt as far away as the northern-most regions of Europe in countries like Finland.

It affected not only physical structures but led minds to thinking of new ways of studying the earth's crust and gave birth to modern seismology. Over two hundred years later in 1967, a different kind of seismic force rippled through the city.

It shocked Europe as far away as the Urals, caused devastation to a structure that had appeared to be invulnerable, and turned orthodox thinking in football on its head by discrediting the dominant creed of the age.

For when Celtic came to Lisbon in May 1967 for the European Cup Final, they were fully aware, from manager to hamper boy, that they were outranked by the stature of an Inter Milan side led by an Argentine whose austere defensive mentality seemed beyond reproach.

After all, Helenio Herrera, previously a successful coach with Barcelona, had led the club to two successive European and Intercontinental cup triumphs, in 1964 and 1965, and slaying, in the process, some of the great attacking teams in Europe, like the Eusebio-inspired Benfica, in that second success.

Herrera had established a formula of rigid defending and counter-attacking that seemed to be establishing itself as the sine qua non for football success throughout the continent.

• Replay: Listen again as Celtic win the 1967 European Cup

• Watch: The stories behind the Lisbon Lions

As he travelled to Lisbon, there was another ominous factor that lay in the back of the mind of Jock Stein, the Celtic manager, which he admitted to me in later years. The Italian sporting culture as a whole, and particularly in football, seemed to hold influential sway over the governance of European events resulting in various claims against it of subterfuge and manipulation of officials.

For instance, Walter McGowan, the Scottish boxer and holder of the World Flyweight title in 1966, once told me: "To get a draw in the ring in Italy you've got to knock your opponent out!". So while Stein had respect for Herrera, he did not trust the influence he might bring to bear on officials simply through his stature and background.

In fact, Stein's deeper suspicions were to surface spectacularly at half-time in the Estadio Nacional when he rebuked the referee, Kurt Tschenscher, for the award of the penalty for Inter after only six minutes, and let him know in no uncertain terms that a free villa in Italy was obviously awaiting him as an award for such beneficence.

A bronzed adonis & an early penalty

But Stein's prime asset, to counter all of that, lay in the mentality of the group of young men he had brought to Lisbon. Fresh in mind and spirit, and apparently unfazed by the razzmatazz surrounding a European Final. Of course, at the time, we were not fully conscious of that nerveless, un-awed quality that would turn out to be a priceless factor in the game itself.

For we in the media were all newcomers ourselves to that rarefied level of football, and observing the Celtic players in and around their palatial, marbled-palace of a hotel in the days before the final, you could not help but feel at times that they might simply be lambs heading for the slaughter, given Inter's status in the world.

It is really only in retrospect that you can appreciate different elements like that. For we were also overlooking other factors that were literally lost in translation.

In the Scottish media very little pre-match publicity took account of reports in the Italian press reflecting on Inter's pre-final loss of form, including a home draw against Fiorentina, in which significant injuries were sustained and led to them being booed off the pitch by their supporters.

Hardly anybody I know was reading between the lines that seemed to be indicating that their robotic catenaccio defensive system was beginning to look jaded, especially as operated by some ageing legs in the team. So they were denied coming to Lisbon as Italian champions, in contrast to Celtic's clean sweep of domestic trophies.

I have to admit the allure of the name Inter was blinding us then to the specific realities that would affect the outcome of the day. The primary factor being the obvious relish that the Celtic players went about their business.

Although Bertie Auld was to admit that in the line-up in the tunnel he was almost overwhelmed by the sight of these deeply tanned Inter players, especially their captain Giacinto Fachetti, who had the stature of a bronzed Adonis, that sense of early apprehension evaporated as soon as they walked into the sunlight.

Even after conceding a dubious penalty so early in the game, I cannot recall a moment when Celtic were not on the front foot. And yet, outside their own legions of supporters there was still this feeling of resignation among the neutral observers that with their early goal lead, Inter would suffocate their opponents into submission in the manner to which they were accustomed.

In fact, all they did was to act as pall-bearers for their own tradition. For they were met by the sustained verve of Celtic's play based clearly on self-belief, augmented by a growing awareness that the Inter players were no galactic stars of repute but in fact a rather pedestrian outfit weighed down by their own systemic habits.

Entrancing Europe and busting defensive myths

It cannot be overstated how superior Celtic were on the day. The two goals by Tommy Gemmell and Steve Chalmers which secured the 2-1 triumph were scant reward for the incessant flow of movement towards the Inter goal.

And yet, at the final whistle, perhaps because we were so unused to Scottish football reaching such a pinnacle, there was almost a sense of disbelief that young men, all of whom, with one exception had been born within 10 miles of Celtic Park, had conquered a system which had become almost mythical in its association with success.

Stein's side had entranced viewers throughout Europe, particularly among the football fraternity who were clearly hungering for something to humble the increasingly overbearing Herrera. Well, they got that in spades, with entertaining football that seemed simple and uncomplicated. And logically it appeared to put Jock Stein at the helm of what might emerge as a new spirited attacking movement in Europe.

It did not quite work out that way. For defensive-minded football gurus like Jose Mourinho, for example, are a hardy breed and are never likely to become as dead as the dodo. But what Stein and his players accomplished was in convincing European football of the alternatives available to take on the apparent infallibility of an entrenched system, if you had the right kind of players.

'High Pressing' is no invention of the 21st century. It had its origins in Lisbon on 25 May 1967.