Wednesday 18 February 2015 19:34, UK
When Celtic and Inter meet in Glasgow tomorrow night in the first leg of their Europa League round of 32 tie, the game will bring two of the continent's traditional big-name clubs together.
Yet it's a head-to-head contest between a pair of the smallest players who will feature which will arguably be the most intriguing aspect of the fixture.
In Gary Medel, Roberto Mancini's team possesses a man known as 'Pitbull' and, given Scott Brown's knack of snarling his way around a football pitch, there is likely to be some bite when they face one another.
Neither man is renowned for his scoring prowess, with the Scot averaging around four goals a season since his £4.4million move from Hibernian in 2007 and Medel still to net since his departure from Cardiff last August.
Instead, it's how both conduct their business in central midfield which is most crucial and the contributions from each will undoubtedly have a bearing in determining who progresses to the last 16 after the return match in Milan next Thursday.
As Celtic and Scotland's captain, Brown has matured and is a calmer, more disciplined figure now than the one which had to avoid sugary drinks and chocolate when he first came to the fore as a youth in order to prevent hyperactivity.
He still has a tendency to get caught up in the moment, as a red card for two bookable offences at Aberdeen in November - the fourth of his Celtic career - and 66 yellows during his stay at Parkhead suggest.
In the main, however, Brown is an integral cog in a Celtic side which is as well-oiled at present as it has been since boss Ronny Deila was appointed last summer and he was the standout in their recent 2-0 Old Firm win over Rangers in the League Cup.
That came after the 29-year-old missed 10 weeks at the start of the season with a hamstring injury and it didn't surprise his Norwegian manager how Brown threw himself into his return match against Aberdeen in September.
"I had to start laughing in the first 10 minutes," Deila said. "He was tackling the whole pitch. Everybody knows how important Brown is for Celtic. He is the leader, a person who demands things and shows the way."
Showing the way is something Medel was particularly adept at during the World Cup finals, in which he was a driving force in taking Chile into the knockout stages and so very nearly past host nation Brazil to the quarter-finals.
In the game which ultimately led to the Chileans' elimination from the tournament, Medel played for 109 minutes against Luiz Felipe Scolari's team with a leg injury and only came off when he could no longer walk without grimacing.
The sight of him being carried off on a stretcher in tears was symbolic of Chile's hopes. For so long, he had won one tackle after another against the likes of Oscar, Neymar and Hulk and appeared on top but had to concede defeat when his body couldn't take any more and his country was edged out on penalties soon after.
Medel's tenacity drew admiration globally and Inter paid £10m a few weeks later - £1m less, remarkably, than Cardiff had paid Sevilla for him in 2013 - to take the 27-year-old to Italy.
Since his arrival in Lombardy, he has started all bar three of his new side's Serie A matches and after a period of acclimatization now appears more settled in a team which has also had to adapt in the aftermath of Mancini's appointment as a replacement for Walter Mazzarri in November.
Statistically, there is little to separate Medel and Brown, with the former playing only 109 more minutes domestically and receiving 10 cautions in all competitions rather than the seven his counterpart has received.
Each likes a duel, with both winning just over half of those they have been involved in in Europe this season while committing fouls and earning them in relatively equal measure.
Brown has much more continental experience than Medel though and that could act as a leveller in a tie Inter will be expected to win overall.
Other key battles
Virgil van Dijk has been linked with a move to England and the Dutch defender will have a chance to show he can make the step up when he comes face to face with Inter's Fredy Guarin.
Attacking midfielder Guarin is enjoying a renaissance under Mancini and has scored three goals in the last two games to continue the improvement he has shown in recent weeks.
Not so long ago the Colombian was arguing with Inter fans after a 3-1 defeat at Sassuolo and he nearly joined Juventus but the deal fell through. Guarin appears disinterested at times but if Mancini uses the 4-3-1-2 formation he deployed to good effect at the weekend in a win at Atalanta, van Dijk could be in for a busy night.
Gary Mackay-Steven is one of three players Celtic have been able to add to their European squad after the January transfer window and he scored 37 seconds into his debut last midweek against Partick.
Recruited for a bargain £250,000 from Dundee United after he signed a pre-contract with Deila's side, he was once at Liverpool for two years but left after injury problems at Anfield.
The 24-year-old could come up against on-loan Newcastle full-back Davide Santon - a player 'pushed out' of St James' Park according to his girlfriend Chloe Sanderson - and the Frenchman will find his opponent is one of Celtic's best attacking outlets.
Domestic form
After a difficult start to life at Celtic which saw the team sit sixth in the Scottish Premiership after eight games, Deila has overseen a much better run of results which has his side three points clear of second-placed Aberdeen with a game in hand.
The Parkhead side has won each of its eight fixtures so far in 2015 and saw a run of 817 minutes without conceding a goal finally come to an end during Saturday's 2-1 win at St Johnstone.
Celtic's highlight in the victorious sequence was undoubtedly the 2-0 derby win against Rangers which secured a place in next month's League Cup final with Dundee United, though the game on a poor pitch at Hampden Park lacked the same quality it has had in recent years.
Inter have continued to suffer inconsistency despite Mancini's return to the club six and a half years after he was sacked and have won only six of the 16 games played in all competitions in his second stewardship so far.
They consequently sit 10th in a congested Serie A table but are just six points behind fourth-placed Fiorentina and only four more adrift of the final Champions League place, currently occupied by Napoli.
Despite faltering, their 3-0 win against Palermo and Sunday's 4-1 thrashing of Atalanta gave Inter consecutive victories for the first time since October. They are yet to win three games in a row this season.
European pedigree
Celtic defeated Inter 2-1 in the 1967 European Cup final in Lisbon, with Tommy Gemmell and Stevie Chalmers scoring to ensure a British club won the tournament for the first time.
It is the Italians, however, who have a better record in continental competitions overall and they were Champions League winners as recently as 2010 under Jose Mourinho.
Having already won it twice by the time Celtic beat them 48 years ago, they also have three UEFA Cup victories from a seven-year spell in the 1990s to their credit.
Celtic reached the final of that event in 2003 - losing 3-2 in extra-time to Mourinho-led Porto - and have reached the last 16 of the Champions League three times in the last eight years.
This season the Scots dropped into the Europa League after losing in the Champions League qualifiers to Legia Warsaw and finished second in their group to Red Bull Salzburg.
Inter won their pool and were undefeated, winning three games and drawing the others after a 9-0 aggregate success against Icelandic side Stjarnan in the preliminaries.
The managers
Deila wasn't known by many British football fans when he was appointed as Neil Lennon's successor at Celtic last June and wasn't thought to be the club's first choice for the position.
The Norwegian has started to win supporters over, however, after an initial run of results which included just five victories in his first 13 games in charge.
Deila had an undistinguished playing career in his homeland, spending most of it at Odd Grenland and winning just two under-21 caps but he led Stromsgodset to the Norwegian Cup in 2009 then their first league title in 43 years in 2013 in his first management post.
Mancini's record is more notable and he starred for Sampdoria for 15 years, making more than 550 appearances there and helping them to the 1992 European Cup final against Barcelona after being instrumental in their only league win a season earlier.
He also turned out for Bologna, Lazio and Leicester City before taking his first coaching role at Fiorentina in 2001 then leading Lazio to the Coppa Italia three years later.
Mancini won the same competition twice more along with two Italian Super Cups after joining Inter in 2004 and won two Serie A titles too before his contract was terminated in 2008.
He later joined Manchester City, leading them to their first Premier League win in 2012, but his failure to make progress in European competition hindered him as it had done in Milan.
Most recently at Galatasaray, Mancini coached them to the Turkish Cup last year but left Istanbul in June and was out of work for five months before his return to Inter.
