Keeping Tabs On Ronaldinho Was A Big Ask But Paul Found The Answer

Feb 24 2008 By Euan Mclean

Caldwell Heaps Praise On Euro Debut Boy Cadd

AS Parkhead debuts go, Paul Caddis couldn't have had it much tougher.

The prospect of marking a magician like Ronaldinho in your team's biggest game of the season would be daunting enough for the most experienced defenders never mind a 19-year-old making just his third first-team appearance.

So the young Hoops full-back deserves enormous credit for coming through the test with distinction before being replaced by Mark Wilson near the end of the Champions League showdown with Barcelona.

And watching Caddis as he followed Ronaldinho's every move brought back proud memories for one of his Celtic team-mates.

It's six years since Gary Caldwell was thrown head first into the deep end on making his Scotland debut against France, when the world champions dealt them a 5-0 thrashing the defender will never forget.

The enduring image from that dark night at the Stade de France is of superstar David Trezeguet callously gesturing the scoreline in Caldwell's face.

Yet the shellshocked debutant was one of the few Scots players to emerge with any credit from that game, the first of Berti Vogts' disastrous regime.

Of course Caldwell was to have the last laugh next time the two teams met on European Championships qualifying duty when he scored the winner in an unforgettable shock victory at Hampden in 2006.

Even now Gary looks back on that harsh introduction to the big stage as the making of him.

Caddis too has been pitched up against the world's best.

Caldwell reckons it's an experience that will bring benefits for years to come, just like it did for him.

And he insists Barcelona are even better than the French team he faced in 2002.

Gary said: "Paul did great up against a world famous player. He came in and did the job that was asked of him. I'm sure he'll learn from it and have a big career.

"I suppose, for him, it was a bit like a Scotland debut for me in Paris but Barcelona were better than France out there.

"That is as good a team as I've come up against for all-round passing and movement.

That's how to play the game. The experience has to bring Paul on. "Football simply does not get any better.

"To pitch him in at that level and for him to handle it tells you he has a big future.

"The longer you play at that level it can only be good for you."

When you're toe to toe with a Brazilian superstar renowned for his ability to conjure moments of magic out of nothing it's a tough enough shift.

But Caldwell reckons Caddis and the rest of the Hoops defence's task was made even harder by the open formation Gordon Strachan fielded.

That's no criticism of the boss, in fact Gary believes Celtic must set themselves up to go for it again in the return leg at the Nou Camp.

Instead he makes the point about Strachan's 4-4-2 set-up to highlight how well Caddis handled his big night.

Caldwell believes it's a far tougher shift than defending as part of a team reined into the tight 4-5-1 shape that earned Scotland home and away victories over France in the Euro 2008 qualifiers.

He said: "In the Scotland v France game we sat deep and if you do that there's not so much space for their strikers.

"But here we tried to win the game, tried to play offensively and by doing that you leave space.

"As a defender you want the opposition players to work in as little space as possible and when you attack and leave gaps that's when their guys are dangerous.

They know where to run and move to cause problems.

"It will be the same over in Spain, we'll need to try to win.

"You leave yourself vulnerable but that's the way it has to be.

"We're not a team that can sit in and defend anyway, we'll always try to attack and score.

"Barcelona, from the back right through to the front, can all pass, control and move the ball.

"It seems the pitch is double the size when they've got it. And when we've got it, it seems to condense right down and that's a great ability to have in a team.

"We have to get more crosses in the box, get forward as much as we can and if we score the first goal over there then you never know what can happen. Crosses got us our two goals.

"We had been saying all week we needed to get the ball wide then put it in. We knew it would cause them problems.

"So we know how to attack Barca - it's containing them that is the hard bit.

"To score two goals against a team like that shows we can get at them.

"But we'll have to contain them better, be braver, want the ball and give people options.

"In the Nou Camp we're going to have to do that because Barca will have the ball for long periods if we don't.

"I've never been to the stadium but hopefully we can go there and achieve something."