Champions league: Celtic vs. Barcelona

Celtic Glasgow have an uphill task if they want to defeat the mighty Barcelona and advance to the next round. Despite getting eight wins form the last eight games, they must be very aware of the fact that they are not the favorites to go through, and aren’t even favorites to take the win on their home soil. The Scottish side is currently second in the league and four points behind leaders and arch rivals Rangers. Manager Gordon Strachan has a young side who are looking for European glory. If they are capable of reproducing their league form in the Champions League they might have the possibility of pulling off an historic victory. Celtic have scored thirteen times in their last three games and if they want to put any goals past in form Barcelona keeper Victor Valdes they will need to be at the top of their game.

Barcelona meanwhile pulled off an important league victory at the weekend to narrow the gap between leaders Real Madrid to five points. Their two – one away win at Zaragoza though was over shadowed by bad refereeing decisions and neither of their goals should have counted. Thierry Henry clearly handled the ball to control it in the first goal and the winner came from an inexistent penalty. The Catalan side have now gone twelve games without losing, though six of those matches ended in draws. They will also be paying a lot of attention to AC Milan’s last match at the Celtic Park stadium, where the Italian giants were dramatically beaten by two goals to one.    

In team news Samuel Eto’o should make a reappearance in this match after his African cup duty. He arrived back in Barcelona with a small injury and coach Frank Rijkaard decided to leave him out of the Zaragoza game. Leo Messi and Yaya Touré need to be careful with the yellow cards as they are both just one short of a suspension, but if this first leg is going well they might try to provoke the referee into giving them one in order to sit out the second game at the Nou Camp.

Celtic’s Scott Brown will definitely miss this clash as he has already seen three yellow cards and he will be an important absentee for the Scottish outfit.

Celtic’s great win over AC Milan was one for the history books and I doubt whether they will be able to pull it off again here. I’m going for a narrow Barcelona win, who will probably do as little as possible, knowing that in the return game in Spain they will have all the advantage.

Prediction: Away win (0-2)