CL (mini) review: Celtic 2 – 1 FC Barcelona: Same scoreline as before, wrong way ’round…

By: Natasha | November 8th, 2012

A nice welcome from Celtic. (image by @Didaclee)

Due to circumstances on my end, this review will be on the shorter side. I apologise. But please don’t leave yet! Barça lost…trolls, come out from your hiding place!

So Barça finally lost a match – but all winning streaks come to an end. Even Barça’s! Tito started the match with the following players: VV – Alves, Bartra, Mascherano, Alba – Song, Xavi, Iniesta – Messi, Alexis and Pedro. No Busquets, as he was suspended, but he’s still the best DM in the world and I rate him a 12 for this match!

You can watch the video above to replay last night’s events. Celtic’s two goals came from set pieces. Not surprising. As Ade put it, “[Celtic] are a physically big team that know how to defend. That’s all Barça needs to be in trouble”, and she’s right. How many times have we seen Barça control possession (according to the UEFA website, Barça’s possession was 72% to Celtic’s 28%, but I’ve seen different figures elsewhere), have numerous attempts on-target (and off, heh) yet still concede from poorly defended set pieces? Actually, in this case, not even poorly defended – our guys just couldn’t stand up (literally) to Celtic’s height.

Thiago had a goal dedicated to him though. No, not *that* Thiago! Thiago Messi!

There’s lots of talk about Celtic playing anti-football – a phrase that never seems to go away – or playing badly and getting lucky from set pieces. Celtic didn’t take any risks, they were “boring to watch”, blah blah blah…and it’s true, Celtic parked their green and white bus, but look how effective it was. Same goes for the similar tactics used by Chelsea. I think we need to be more critical of our team – why does this keep happening? Barça still haven’t quite managed to figure out a way to overcome teams that park the bus. And until they do, we can expect the same thing to happen. Celtic beat us by knowing what seems to work agains Barça, and they played a very clean match, so respect to them.

It's cold in Glasgow, but not that cold. Unless you're Spanish, that is. I forget that they know what the sun looks like.

Well done to Celtic, and what a way to celebrate your 125th birthday! The current group standings are as follows:

Barça – 9 points
Celtic – 7 points
Benfica – 4 points
Spartak – 3 points

Time to look ahead to this weekend’s match against Mallorca. Last night’s loss isn’t disastrous and we’ll still qualify for the knock out rounds of the CL. I’m glad this loss has come in a CL match – a loss in La Liga isn’t an option right now.

Some Related Barcelona Posts:

Category: Team News

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Laurelindorenan27

highly dissapointed with this blog entry, nothing about the 125 picture at the start of the game, or the atmosphere which was considerably better then the nou camp.
Natasha

Because this is a Barça fan blog and not a Celtic one? I did mention the club's 125th anniversary, although talking about a mosaic and the atmosphere is kinda secondary to discussing the football itself.
puppet

For whatever reason, I just can't get worked up about this loss. Maybe its because I see this team as still in transition, and therefore I can be more charitable, but I don't feel any real letdown. Barca didn't play badly, they just didn't play good enough. Celtic played the exact game they needed to, so congrats.

Briefly: I thought Alexis looked better than he has in a while. Messi got another CL goal, and this was a special one. All in all, not a tragedy, we just have to be ruthless our next game.
nim39

Well done Celtic. They played the game better than Chelsea did tbh, without resorting to dirty tactics or time wasting. They were well organised and made it very difficult for our boys. This was the nicest team to lose to :)
I'm more upset at the way Barca played the game. They were very slow, pedestrian almost, only showing urgency in the last 3 mins of the game. This is not the first defensive team we've played and it surely isn't the last. What's more annoying is that, Barca still struggle with the bus. Granted, all the teams this season have parked the bus except for EE, Rayo, Depo and Sevilla and Barca know how to handle it in liga but, in Europe, it's becoming more difficult. I thought this game would have been good for Cesc with his direct play but then again, he wouldn't have guaranteed anything.
When the draw was made, Graham Hunter did mention Barca have always struggled against Celtic and it wouldn't be as easy as most people think. I guess he was right and last time Barca did visit Celtic park, they lost as well..
I'm not one to jump on the team and point fingers when we drop points or lose and i'm not going to do that now either but, Barca have gone down in 9 matches losing two of them and it was a matter of time till something like this happened. It's better to drop the points now in the CL than in the liga but now, we have to go to Russia and play another very fast and physical team in the cold, aaaahhh, it's gonna be difficult.
Oh well, for now we think of la liga and how to make Fontas pay for this lose, he he.
tcd

Barcelona need to rethink back line. Mascherano has no positional sense and is the weak link on every game played 2012.