Atletico Madrid legend and captain in their 1974 shame game against Celtic, Adelardo Rodríguez, incredibly blamed Hoops' icon Jimmy Johnstone for the infamous mayhem that night.

And he labelled the late Celt a 'great actor' and accused him of hiding in the second leg in Spain.

Celtic face Atletico tonight in the Champions League, but the La Liga giants have dragged up painful memories of one of the most notorious games ever to take place by insisting on wearing the exact same replica strip of the one they wore on April 10, 49 years ago in the first leg of the European Cup semi-final.

Turkish ref Dogan Babacan ended up sending off three players from Atletico, who conceded a total of 51 free kicks that night and Johnstone - voted the greatest-ever Celt in a fans' vote in 2002 - took the brunt of it.

However, Rodriguez, who is now 84 and won three Spanish titles in 553 appearances, put the blame squarely on Johnstone, who passed away 17 years ago.

He said: "Jimmy Johnstone was the one who caused it all up.

"He was a very skillful player, very quick, good. Of course he was fouled. That's normal. What happened is that he multiplied it tenfold with his gestures, his pretending and that's why he got on our nerves and got the crowd going.

"He was a great actor.

"The ref sent off three players and I had to mark him and I had a hard time with him.

"I called him everything, in Spanish and with some ugly words in English that I knew. I think he understood me, from the look on his face.

"When I finished I told him 'I'll wait for you in Madrid'. The police and his coaches surrounded him so that no one would mess with him. They didn't let me go any further.

"In the second leg, didn't even dare to move. He didn't look like a winger, he looked like a linesman because he was so far away from us.

"He didn't want to know anything."

And Rodríguez insists that it was actually Atletico who were treated badly that infamous night and not Celtic.

He pointed out: "Celtic were very confident that they would qualify, that's why they were so angry. They were unable to beat us with eight players for more than 25 minutes.

"You had to be there to see what we had to endure. The Scots created this climate for a battle - the press, the fans, before we even got there, they said that Ruben Ayala and Ruben Diaz were butchers. For us, it was like the European Cup Final itself and we gave everything.

"It was like a war. In the airport on the way home, they threw our passports to the ground. The police beat us after the game.

"It seemed like an attack by an army.

"Actually, we were not a violent team. We went to Belgrade and won 2-0 and were applauded off the pitch. The thing about violence was an invention of the Scottish press."