“It is tough when you lose so many goals”.
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Barca captain Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick and Luis Suarez a double with further goals from Neymar and substitute Andres Iniesta while Moussa Dembele had a penalty saved by Marc-Andre ter Stegen when it was 1-0 to the home side.
Earlier this summer, the Antrim native was forced to issue a similar statement after a 1-0 defeat to part-timers Lincoln Red Imps in the Champions League qualifiers.
Scottish Champions Celtic were left humbled last night by a ruthless Barcelona side at the Nou Camp. The keeper then made up for his error by saving the French striker’s spot kick and Messi made the save doubly important two minutes later when he took advantage of another pass from Neymar to stab the ball home from close range to make the score 2-0. We played so well, the approach of our opponents didn’t matter in the least.
Messi and Suarez came off the bench in the second half against Alaves, joining Neymar on the field, but the trio was not able to prevent the loss.
This Celtic team might not have the likes of a Henrik Larsson, Stiliyan Petrov or Shunsuke Nakamura, who belonged in the Champions League, but they are good players, excellent professionals who have won big games, played worldwide football and have pride bursting out of every pore.
In Group A, PSG took just 42 seconds to take the lead against Arsenal with newly signed Germany defender Shkodran Mustafi not looking good as the completely unmarked Edison Canavi nodded home Serge Aurier’s right-wing cross.
Dembele was Celtic’s hat-trick hero in a 5-1 thrashing of Glasgow rivals Rangers on Saturday, but he failed to add to his burgeoning reputation as ter Stegen flew to his right to turn the Frenchman’s penalty behind.
This was Celtic’s heaviest ever defeat in Europe even before Neymar assisted once again for the seventh, for Suarez.
“I think in the first half we had a critical moment in the game”.
Messi became the first player in European Cup history to score six hat-tricks as he bagged his 40th career treble for club and country in Barca’s biggest European Cup win. We were great in our pressing and in recovering the ball after losing it.
The Spanish midfielder said: “We came off a defeat that hurt us a lot for the way in which it came about”.
In a rematch of a Round-of-16 encounter last season, Atletico Madrid beat PSV Eindhoven 1-0 in the Netherlands.
“The scoreline is bitterly disappointing”, admitted Celtic manager Brendan Rogers, while Barca midfielder Ivan Rakitic tweeted: “Not a bad way to start this season’s Champions League”.
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Arsenal’s night got better with news that Group A’s other game between Basel and Ludogorets also ended 1-1. “They have done that to much better teams than us”, he said.
