Benfica moved into top spot in the Portuguese league alongside Porto following a 3-0 win over Nacional last night.
Paraguayan striker Cradoza scored a second half double either side of a strike from Rodrigo in front of 34,695 at the Stadium of Light.
Belgian international Axel Witsel was given the task of replacing Javi Garcia who joined Manchester City in a £16m deal on Friday.
In Spain it took a goal from left back Adriano Correia to give Barcelona three points at home to Valencia.
With full points from their opening three matches new coach Tito Vilanova has a five point advantage over Real Madrid.
Former Arsenal midfielder Alex Song made his debut in centre midfield with Cecs Fabregas on his left and Xavi on the right.
Vilanova said: “Song has done a very good game, it takes a few days working with us to fit into the team but he is a smart player and had a very good game.
“It’s important to reach the international break with full points, it’s nice to have a five point lead over Madrid knowing that things will improve.”
Celtic’s second Champions League opponents, Spartak Moscow, lost out 2-1 against Lokomotiv in a Moscow derby.
Dmitri Kombarov opened the scoring for Spartak in the seventh minute but Dame N’Doye and former Spurs striker Roman Pavlyuchenko struck midway through the second half to give the home side full points.
Aiden McGeady was one of four Spartak players booked with Spartak sitting in sixth place in the table with four wins and three defeats from seven matches.
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ahh well based on the powers of deduction we probably hump benfica and barca then lose the rest of the games and go out on goal difference to spartak! actually naw we’ll beat spartak too and go on to smash Real in the final 5-0…. hmmm….
sorry ive had a few carlsbergs!
Surely these are the results we should be looking out for as they may give us an indication of what we will be facing up to in the coming weeks and months, NOT the meaningless results of a bunch of upstarts from some new club in the 4th tier of Scottish football?
I was glad that Man City helped us out by signing Garcia for £16m but that was somewhat thwarted by news that Benfica had immediately signed a relacement from Athletico from £10m!
Can’t wait to get started, hopefully with everyone available and not with a 2nd half showing like Saturday….
Just wait until they need to take on the might of the famous glasgow celtic 1888 – forever haha, we will take them all apart at paradise and a win or 2 on the road will set us up fine and dandy, hail hail