Real Madrid, 1960. Celtic, 1967.

Two separate European Cup triumphs. Two teams who became known the world over.

Two teams with iconic kits. Two teams that can make you fall in love with football.

Both sides have a history of playing what legendary Celtic manager Jock Stein once referred to as "pure, beautiful, inventive football". 

Real are the proud owners of 14 gold stars. Celtic have one.

While the Dutch can lay claim to the phrase 'Total Football' nobody can argue that 1960 Real Madrid and Jock Stein's 1967 Celtic played a hybrid form of it in their heyday.

There is lineage here of course with Stein's Lisbon Lions side being inspired by the Los Blancos side of Alfredo Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas that destroyed Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 at Hampden in front of 127,000 spectators 62 years ago.

READ MORE: Ange Postecoglou, Jock Stein and Ferenc Puskas : The Celtic through-line that binds football royalty

Ange Postecoglou's Celtic team have also been modelled on Puskas's philosophy of attacking football that he taught the Greek-born Aussie when he coached South Melbourne.

Postecoglou grew up watching and loving teams like Celtic and Real Madrid.

A self-confessed Liverpool fan, the 57-year-old told of how his dad Jim used to wake him up at ridiculous o'clock in the morning in Australia to watch European Cup matches.

Now as the football gods have decreed Postecoglou would lead his Celtic team against his father's one-time idols in the reincarnation of the greatest club tournament in world football, the Champions League.

Celtic v Real Madrid was definitely a match-up for the hopeless football romantics and dreamers among the Hoops faithful.

The 57-year-old made two changes to the team that hammered Rangers 4-0 in the Glasgow Derby at the weekend with the injured Carl Starfelt being replaced by Moritz Jenz and Kyogo Furuhashi having to be content with a place on the bench with Giorgos Giakoumakis deputising.

For 45 minutes Celtic talked the talk and walked the walk against the kings of Europe.

Chances came and went begging but Postecoglou's men certainly turned up for a scrap.

Paradise was rocking and the roof almost blew off the amphitheatre in Glasgow's east end when captain fantastic Callum McGregor was denied a 14th European career goal for Celtic when he rattled the inside of the post.

Liel Abada and Daizen Maeda were also guilty of passing up three cracking opportunities between them that left the Hoops rueing those misses come full-time.

READ MORE: Celtic naivety, incredible support and unsettling the European champions - Callum McGregor Q+A

The Spaniards are not the European champions for nothing and a clinical two-goal burst inside four second-half minutes from Brazilian Vinicius Junior and Luka Modric effectively ended the game as a contest.

Belgium international and former Chelsea star Eden Hazard made it 3-0 with 13 minutes to go to rub salt into the wounds.

It was a harsh and brutal lesson in being clinical at this level.

But if any team can learn from this loss it is most certainly Postecoglou's Celtic.

Amazingly it was Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti's - the most decorated manager in Champions League history - first taste of victory in Glasgow. An astonishing statistic when you analyse it.

Celtic though had gone down fighting.

Postecoglou's men had thrown down the gauntlet to the best club side in world football bar none.

For 55 minutes of the contest, it hung in the balance.

It's hardly a shock that Celtic are not at the level of the reigning European champions... just yet.

However, at the final whistle, the Celtic supporters stood and cheered their team to the rafters in appreciation for the fare that their Hoops heroes had served up on the night.

They also rose in appreciation of world-class talent Modric. That act in itself was a touch of class.

As skipper McGregor observed: "It is probably hard to think back to a team getting beat 3-0 at home and getting that type of reaction at the end."

If you are going to go down, you may as well go down swinging.

READ MORE: Celtic take their game to Real Madrid, but go down swinging as class of champions prevails

Wise and prophetic words from Postecoglou in the build-up to the Real Madrid clash.

Here are some even wiser words from Jock Stein: "It is up to us, to everyone at Celtic Park, to build our own legends. We don’t want to live with history, to be compared with legends from the past. We must make new legends.”

Postecoglou is well aware that the legends who are the Lisbon Lions will never be surpassed in the club's illustrious history.

That won't stop him from shooting his shot and aiming for the stars with this current group of players.

They say that you learn much more about yourselves in defeat.

Celtic may have drawn a blank against Los Blancos but Glasgow is still very much 'Verde y Blanco'.

On the basis of this evidence alone, the Hoops are certainly heading in the right direction.

The Aussie readily admits that he carries his father Jim with him everywhere.

His old man was the biggest single influence on his life.

Somewhere up there Jim is smiling because his boy's Celtic team went down swinging against Real Madrid.

Ange Postecoglou did it his way - the Celtic way.

This takes us right back to the very starting point: Real Madrid and Celtic are two teams that can make you fall in love with football.

Despite the Champions League defeat to Real last night the nature of the performance saw Celtic supporters fall in love with their football team and club all over again.

While it isn't 1960 or 1967 it is fair to say that Postecoglou has certainly won the hearts and minds of the Celtic fans... hands down.