Month: October 2013

BARCA BEAT CELTIC

The Barcelona boss, Gerardo Martino, has hailed his team for putting up a great, all round performance in their Champions League match against Celtic yesterday, to top Milan’s Champions league group.

Barcelona won the match by 1-0 and maintained its top position in Group H. The stand out performer for Barcelona in the game was the Spanish midfielder Cesc Fabregas who found the net for the visitors with 10 odd minutes left.

Celtic played with only 10 players for the last half an hour or so as Scott Brown was shown red card around the 60th minute. That might also have resulted in the deterioration of Celtic’s performance towards the end, but, Barcelona must be given credit for the intensity that they showed in the entire game.

Talking to the reporters in the post match press conference, Martino said, “We were consistent right through the match and we deserved these 3 points. It was a perfect game for us. You can say it’s the best that we have played this season.”

When asked about Lionel Messi who didn’t feature in this match because of the hamstring strain that he had picked up while playing against Almeria last weekend, Martino said, “You always miss great players like Messi when they are not available. But, it was nice to see the boys doing a great job without him. It was important to rise to the occasion and the boys did that.”

Barcelona’s next Champions League match is against the Italian giants AC Milan. That game will take place on 22nd of this month at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza.

AC remain second in the Champions League table, having been held to a draw by Ajax. A late Mario Balotelli penalty helped bring AC back on to level terms. Next up is Atalanta, who, according to the latest Serie A betting, have little hope against a resurgent Milan.