Celtic draw pleases García

By Alex O'Henley in Glasgow

Villarreal CF coach Francisco García believes his team are in sight of a UEFA Cup semi-final place after coming away from Celtic FC with a credible draw.

Priceless away goal
The Primera División side succeeded where league rivals FC Barcelona failed in the last round of the competition by scoring a priceless away goal against last season's beaten finalists. The sole surviving UEFA Intertoto Cup winners are now standing on the threshold of a last-four meeting with either Valencia CF or FC Girondins de Bordeaux in Villarreal's first season in major European competition.

'A little advantage'
"I think we have a little advantage going into the second game because we scored here against Celtic," said García. "But there is still 90 minutes to play and it is all there to play for. We had chances to score again and had we taken them it would have made things more difficult for Celtic."

Josico repays faith
Garcia's decision to bring Josico into midfield was vindicated on nine minutes when he got on the end of a cross from Roger García to head his side into the lead against the run of play. The goal rocked Celtic and Villarreal's wide players José Mari and Roger in particular caused all sorts of problems for the Celtic defence, aided and abetted by the outstanding Juan Riquelme in central midfield.

'We were excellent'
Celtic manager Martin O'Neill, whose side are unbeaten at home since August 2001, conceded: "The goal obviously knocked us back for a good 15 minutes. They are a really good side and every bit as good as we expected, but I thought we were excellent in the second half and deserved our equaliser."

Disallowed goal
O'Neill's side were more of a force in the second half, urged forward by another capacity 60,000 crowd who thought their side had equalised on 53 minutes. Villarreal goalkeeper José Reina received a backpass from Rodolfo Arruabarrena but his clearance hit Henrik Larsson and spun into the net. However, the assistant referee had spotted that the ball had bounced off Larsson's raised arm.

Larsson scores
The Swedish forward was not to be denied though and just over ten minutes later he was in the right place to head in a cross from Didier Agathe to bring Celtic level. Minutes later Larsson could have put Celtic ahead on the night after being set up by Stephen Pearson, but the striker - normally so deadly in such situations - lifted his shot over the bar.

'Still open'
"The tie is still open," Larsson maintained. "It will be very difficult but we will give it our best shot. We now have to go over there and score a goal."

O'Neill determined
While disappointed to have conceded a goal at home, O'Neill is still confident his side can go to Spain and get a result next Wednesday. "We have been in this situation before last season," said O'Neill referring to drawn matches at home during his side's UEFA Cup run in 2002/03. "We are capable of scoring away from home as we have shown before and we will give it everything next week to try and score over there."

Thompson suspension
However, Celtic will have to play Wednesday's return game without English midfield player Alan Thompson - who agreed a contract extension this week - after he picked up a booking and is now suspended for the second leg.