Celtic 1
Barcelona 3
SPANISH CHAMPIONS BARCELONA didn’t get out of second gear as they saw off Celtic in a pre-season friendly at the Aviva Stadium this evening.
First half finishes from Arda Turan, Efe Ambrose (own goal) and Munir El Haddadi were enough to hand them victory in the International Champions Cup, with Leigh Griffiths on target for the Scottish Premiership title holders.
The welcome pre-match news for the 47,900-strong crowd who attended was that they would get to see two of Barca’s superstars in action from the first whistle as Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez were both named in what was a largely second-string starting XI.
Celtic, meanwhile, made four changes to the team that drew with Astana in the Champions League third qualifying round first leg on Wednesday ahead of this week’s return leg in Glasgow.
Saidy Janko, Emilio Izaguirre, Nir Bitton and James Forrest came in for Mikeal Lustig, Kieran Tierney, Stuart Armstrong and Moussa Dembele, while Ireland U21 defender Eoghan O’Connell kept his place.
All eyes were on Barca’s number ten, these days sporting peroxide blonde hair, during the warm-up but it was Celtic teenager Patrick Roberts who stood out in the opening minutes.
The 19-year-old winger, on loan from Manchester City, latched onto a stray pass in the first minute and shot just wide of Jordi Masip’s post. Roberts then showed excellent footwork to make room for himself, but again, narrowly missed the target.
The Catalan giants were first to find the back of the net on 11 minutes when Aleix Vidal collected a pass wide on the right, then nutmegged James Forrest and picked out Arda Turan on the edge of the Celtic box.
The Turkish captain made no mistake by stroking the ball beyond Craig Gordon.
Scott Brown had the chance to draw Celtic level shortly afterwards when he closed down Jeremy Mathieu but the Hoops captain’s low drive was smothered by Masip.
They were gifted an equaliser on 29 minutes, however. Masip played a short pass out to Jose Martinez and the young defender took a horrible first touch to allow Scottish striker Leigh Griffiths in for a simple tap-in.
Last season’s La Liga winners restored their advantage within seconds as Celtic defender Efe Ambrose turned the ball into his own net from a Juan Camara cross.
Messi drifted in and out of the game but he did play a telling passing in the build-up to his side’s third goal.
He switched the play from one side of the pitch to the other to find Camera and from there the ball was fed to Luis Suarez, who teed up 20-year-old Munir El Haddadi to put them 3-1 up heading in at half-time.
The notable absentee when the players emerged from the tunnel was Messi, whose work for the day was done as Sergi Samper came on in his place.
Rodgers opted to make seven changes at the break and a raft more followed on both sides throughout the second half.
Celtic replacements Nadir Cifti, Tomas Rogic and Stuart Armstrong all came close but Barca maintained their two-goal lead until the final whistle.
They head back to England this evening and face Premier League champions Leicester City in Stockholm this Wednesday, 3 August, while Celtic are back in European action on the same night.
CELTIC: Gordon (Bailly, 45); Janko (Ralston, 63), Ambrose (McCart, 63), O’Connell (Ajer, 45), Izaguirre (Fisher, 77); Brown (Rogic, 45), Bitton (Allan, 45), McGregor (Armstrong, 45); Roberts (Ciftci, 45), Griffiths (Dembele, 45), Forrest (Christie, 63).
BARCELONA: Masip (Suarez, 77); Roberto (Alena, 60), Mathieu (Santos, 60), Martinez (Nili, 77) Vidal; L. Suarez (Mujica, 60), Turan (Carbonell, 60), Camara (Borja, 77); Munir (Gubau, 77), Messi (Samper, 45), D. Suarez (Alvaro, 60).
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