Celtic completed their preparation for the The Durban Under 19’s International Football Tournament in South Africa with a 4-2 win over East Kilbride yesterday.
A double from Calvin Miller plus strikes from Ciaran Lafferty and Theo Archibald gave Celtic a win before tomorrow’s flight to Durban where they will face Arsenal on Wednesday, PSV Eindhoven on Friday and the KZN Academy on Saturday.
Darnell Fisher played 90 minutes at right-back with the remainder of the squad on duty at the K Park, plus Joe Thomson and Mark Hill, making up the party for South Africa led by Stevie Frail, Chris McCart and goalkeeping coach Colin Meldrum.
Yesterday Miller opened the scoring in the 28th minute with Lafferty adding a second from the penalty spot midway the second half. Fisher sent Miller through for Celtic’s third goal with Blair Currie setting up fellow substitute Theo Archibald for number four.
After arriving in Durban on Tuesday it’s almost straight into action against Arsenal the next day (kick off 4.15 Celtic Park time) with the matches played over 90 minutes unlike many youth tournaments where the games can be 30 minutes each half.
The South African organisers have pulled out all the stops for the event with the other group consisting of Stuttgart, Galatasaray, AC Milan and the South African national side.
As well as the matches every club will take part in community workshops involving local schoolchildren giving them the opportunity to benefit from top class coaching.
Video Celts will be streaming the matches live thanks to the good guys at EVERSPORT.
CLICK HERE for tournament website.
CELTIC: Colin McCabe (Ross Doohan); Darnell Fisher, Dan Higgins, Jamie McCart, Aiden McIlduff (Blair Kidd); Jack Breslin, Innes Murray; Regan Hendry, Aidan Nesbitt, Calvin Miller; Ciaran Lafferty (Blair Currie)