Barça ease into quarters (1-0)

Barça ease into quarters (1-0)

Jordi Clos

Barça were once again vastly superior to Celtic in part two of this Champions League second round encounter. An early goal from the home side made a comeback for the Hoops as good as impossible.

Barça never looked troubled as they sailed into the last eight of the Champions League. Xavi opened the scoring after just two minutes and that was as good as game over before it had barely started. Having already won 3-2 in Glasgow, Barça knew they would need to concede three goals to go out, and with Gordon Strachan’s side looking far less impressive away from Celtic Park, the 5,000 vociferous visiting supporters were left to sing their way through a game that even the most optimistic amongst them would have found it hard to believe they were ever going to win.

But the image of the night from a Barcelona point of view was Messi hobbling off in dismay with what looked like a serious hamstring injury. It was certainly the low point of the evening.

Great start

Barça were ready from the start. The only goal of the game came just two minutes into the action, with all of Barça’s main attacking players involved in a build up from wing to wing. Then from the edge of the area, Ronaldinho laid the ball on to Sylvinho, who fed it on to Xavi to beat Boruc with a subtle strike. Barça were one-up, and it was one-way traffic from then on.








Messi injured

The ball was in Scottish territory almost the whole time, with Rijkaard’s side enjoying almost embarrassingly continuous possession of the ball, with attack after attack breaking through the green and white midfield. Ronaldinho and Sylvinho were working well together, but Eto’o and Puyol both failed to beat Celtic’s Polish goalkeeper from clear-cut opportunities. Perhaps the lack of urgency was to blame, and then an aura of dismay fell over the side when they saw Messi limping off in tears with what could be another serious injury for the young Argentinian. As Henry came on as substitute, concern over Messi’s fate seemed to knock the spirit out of the home side.


Uneventful second half

There was very little to get excited about from then on. Celtic did try to push forward but came up with very little to endanger the Barcelona defence. Ronaldinho and Deco did find some work for Boruc to do as the half grew older, but as time pressed on, the crowd was just getting colder and colder. There was one moment that raised the temperature a little when Eto’o had a chance to score in the 72nd minute, but decided to pass the ball on to Henry instead, only for the ball to be intercepted by the Celtic defence.

Playing for time

Barcelona had no reason to panic, and were happy to just let the minutes tick by, having realised by now that Celtic were well contained. The Scots finally conjured up some spirit in the last few minutes as they threw caution to the wind in the hope of at least grabbing a draw on the night. Such positive thinking almost proved costly for them though, as two late strikes from Eto’o and Gudjohnsen could easily have made it two-nil. They didn't go in, and the final score of 1-0 is perhaps a poor reflection of a game in which Barça dominated the proceedings from start to finish