SCOTT Brown has fond memories of playing at the Parc des Princes, and he is hoping that they stay that way after tomorrow night. The Celtic captain will lead his team out at the stadium to take on the might of Paris Saint-Germain over 10 years since his only other appearance at the venue in one of Scottish football’s most iconic evenings.

The Scots scrapped and battled their way to a single goal victory over France on that occasion of course, thanks to some tremendous goalkeeping from Craig Gordon, some heroic defending, and a moment of magic from James McFadden which has gone down in the annals of history.

And yet, Brown feels that such is the might of Celtic’s opponents tomorrow night, a win over Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Edinson Cavani and company would rank higher than that victory over the likes of Patrick Vieira, David Trezeguet and Nicolas Anelka. In fact, he believes it is the hardest game in world football at the moment.

“A win on Wednesday would be a bigger achievement than the victory with Scotland because of the money they’ve spent and they want to win the Champions League,” said Brown.

“They look like the team to beat so if we go over there and get any sort of result it will be fantastic for us.

“It’s the hardest game in the world right now and then go straight into a cup final and then play the following midweek against Motherwell again – well done the SPFL for that!

“But I can remember that night well with Scotland in the Parc de Princes. I ran about silly for 90 minutes, got three touches of the ball, defended really well and Faddy scored an unbelievable goal.

“Craig Gordon told me he assisted but that about sums up the night. They were the best team in the world at the time and we went over as underdogs and defended for our lives.

“We created a couple of chances, nothing major, and Faddy scored that unbelievable goal from about 40 yards out.

“It’s up there with the best results of my career overall because we were playing against top quality players.

“We had two right backs in me and Alan Hutton, nobody went forward, and we were up against Florent Malouda and Nicolas Anelka.

“We took a man each and defended and hoped they wouldn’t get past us. We did a good enough job to get away with that 1-0 and Craig Gordon was brilliant again in goals.”

As successful as Scotland’s rather crude strategy turned out to be on that famous night, as well as in the home victory over the French earlier in the same campaign thanks to a sucker punch goal from Gary Caldwell, it won’t be forming the blueprint for Celtic’s own grand plan to sack Paris.

Under Brendan Rodgers, Brown stressed that there will be an onus on the Celtic players to attack when they can and express themselves on the ball, and be confident enough to take the game to their opponent.

To that end, he believes that James Forrest, who produced an electrifying display in the last Champions League match against Bayern Munich at Celtic Park, may well be a key figure.

“We have a manager who likes us to go and express ourselves in the final third.

“For me, James Forrest with the way he has been playing this season, if anyone is going to do it then you have to believe it will be him. He’s got the pace to do it and he’s got the quality to score a goal as well.”

l Scott Brown was talking as he returned to his native Fife to open John Thomson Park in memory of the late Celtic goalkeeper.