Celtic’s youth side made it two wins out of two in the Al Ain Youth Championship with a 1-0 win over Benfica in Abu Dhabi.
A trialist striker scored shortly before half-time to book the hoops a semi-final date against host club Al Ain with the match following a similar pattern to the 1-0 win over Dinamo Zagreb two days earlier.
“We’ve adopted a different style of play in this competition and the players have adapted well,” coach Stevie Frail explained.
“Because of the heat and type of opposition we’ve had to play differently. At home when we don’t have the ball we have to press high but we can’t do that here.
“We are very compact in defence and hit hard on the break, it’s worked well in both games.
“It’s something new for us in terms of the defensive side of the game and the players have taken to it.
“Al Ain will be very tough opponents in the semi final. They had a great draw against Inter Milan then beat them on penalties.
“As the host side they have something to prove, they have some older players and a 5pm kick-off will also be a factor.
“Both of our games so far have been 7pm starts with the sun down, it’s still hot but we’ll need to get adapt to the heat for a 5pm kick off.
“We’ve trained every day we’ve been here but it’ll just be a recovery session in the pool to keep everyone as fresh as possible.
“Everyone is looking forward to the match tomorrow knowing that it’s a chance to reach a final.”
CELTIC: Fasan: Fisher, O’Connell, Findlay, Miller: Irvine, Herron, Lindsay: Trialist (Kidd), P Twardzik (McGregor), George (Johnstone)
Who was the trialist?
The trialist was a lad called Kieran Woodley from Crystal Palace apparently.
Watched a lot of the 17s game in Moscow, they still played a high tempo / pressing game…might have been better to follow the same tactics used by the 20s. Although the games are shorter (60 mins) they are playing 4 games in 4 days on Astro-turf.
Drew 1-1 with Spartak Moscow yesterday, lost 0-1 to Barcelona today, Spurs tomorrow
Cheers WillieBhoy.
I had a daft thought in my head that Celtic gave Sammi a haircut and a shave and passed him off as a trialist ‘youngster’, like that Saudi Arabian team did at the under-16s World Cup a few years back!