Barcelona has been defeated by Celtic in a Champions League match played at Celtic park on Tuesday. Barcelona lost the match by 2-1. This was only the second defeat for Barcelona in the ongoing season. Tito Vilanova’s team had won its last 12 matches on the trot. But, in the match against Celtic, the Barcelona team didn’t look in prime form.
The credit of Celtic’s victory should be given to its goalkeeper Fraser Forster who made three brilliant saves. He stopped a fine angular shot from Lionel Messi in the first half to prevent him from scoring a leveller. Then, he again stopped the great Argentinean from finding the net in the later part of the second half. However, Messi managed to score a goal in the 2nd minute of the injury time, but, that was not enough to prevent the defeat of Barcelona.
Two weeks back, Barcelona had defeated Celtic by the same margin in the match played at Camp Nou. So, the Celtic team got its revenge in this match. The manager of Barcelona, Tito Vilanova, made quite a few changes to the side that had played against Celta Vigo. Sergio Busquets, David Villa, Adriano and Cesc Fabregas didn’t play in this match and on their place; Alex Song, Daniel Alves, Alexis Sanchez and Marc Bartra came into the team.
Celtic took the lead in the 21st minute of the match with the goal of Victor Wanyama. The Kenyan defender capitalized on the pass of Charles Mulgrew and sent the ball into the net with a fine header. Celtic got up by 2-0 in the 83rd minute. Anthony Watt took advantage of Xavi’s mistake and drilled the ball past the Barcelona goalkeeper to put his team on the driving seat.
Barcelona’s next match will be a La Liga encounter against Mallorca at ONO Estadi on Saturday.