Celtic 2003

Coach: Martin O'Neill

Martin O'Neill's Celtic reached the 2003 UEFA Cup final in Seville, the club's first European final in over three decades, backed by an extraordinary travelling support estimated at 80,000 fans who turned the Andalusian city green and white for the week of the match — a scale of support widely praised by UEFA and the host city alike, even in defeat. Henrik Larsson, the Swedish striker who remains arguably the greatest player in the club's modern history, scored twice in the final itself, but Porto — managed by a young José Mourinho and en route to establishing his reputation as one of the game's outstanding young coaches — won 3-2 after extra time through a late Derlei goal. The run to the final had seen Celtic eliminate Blackburn, Celta Vigo, Stuttgart, Liverpool and Boavista, a genuinely impressive list of scalps for a club operating largely outside Europe's financial elite even by early-2000s standards. Larsson's display that night is still celebrated as one of the great individual European performances by a Scottish club player.