Celtic's hopes of reaching the UEFA Cup final hangs in the balance tonight after they were held to a 1-1 draw by Boavista in their UEFA Cup semi-final first leg at Parkhead. Henrik Larsson gave Celtic hope with his 37th goal of the season a minute after Joos Valgaeren's own goal had undeservedly put the Portuguese side ahead. But the Swede went from hero to villain by failing to score from the spot after the home side were eventually awarded a penalty after two solid appeals had been turned down.
Ricardo's save leaves Boavista the favourites to advance to next month's final in Seville and deny Celtic a first European final appearance since 1970. But Celtic will travel to Oporto for the second leg confident they can score after dominating the first leg.
Celtic, who had two first-half penalty claims for handball turned down, were caught cold two minutes after the restart when Valgaeren, attempting to cut out Filipe Anunciacao's cross from the right, deflected the ball inside Rab Douglas to gift Boavista a valuable away goal.
The equaliser came almost immediately - Neil Lennon feeding Stillian Petrov, who set up Larsson to fire home from inside the box.
Celtic were finally awarded a penalty in the 75th minute after Eder had handled Thompson's deflected free-kick - but Ricardo guessed right and saved Larsson's effort by his right-hand post.
Thompson could not recreate his free-kick from Anfield and fired straight into the wall with seven minutes left. Turra then thwarted a late Celtic goal by clearing Hartson's goalbound effort off the line to put Boavista in the driving seat for a trip to Seville.
