BARCELONA MISSED THE chance to move top of LaLiga as they fell to a damaging 4-3 loss away to Celta Vigo, with goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen enduring a match to forget.
Real Madrid’s home draw against Eibar earlier on Sunday had opened the door for the champions to take first place, but they instead endured a miserable evening at Balaidos in a thrilling encounter.
Celta have beaten Barca in each of the last two seasons – including a 4-1 home victory last season – and raced into a three-goal half-time lead.
Pione Sisto opened the scoring following a mistake from Ter Stegen, before two goals in the space of 86 seconds – an Iago Aspas strike and an own goal from Jeremy Mathieu – rocked the visitors.
Luis Enrique’s side launched a comeback after the break, with Gerard Pique’s header and a Neymar penalty setting up a grandstand finish, but Ter Stegen blundered again for Pablo Hernandez’s match-clinching header.
Pique did net another header in the final moments, but the hosts held on and Eduardo Berizzo now has three LaLiga victories over his Celta predecessor Luis Enrique – a man no other manager in Spain’s top-flight has beaten more than once.
And Barca have now lost two of their first seven games to sit fourth in the early season table, two points behind leaders Atletico Madrid and Real.
Barca had the first chance of note when Luis Suarez drilled a low effort straight at Sergio Alvarez, but it was the home team who opened the scoring in the 22nd minute.
Ter Stegen’s loose pass to Sergio Busquets led to Aspas’ precise throughball finding Sisto – who also scored last week against Espanyol – and he calmly took one touch before converting with a low finish.
After 31 minutes, it was two. A long clearance from Hugo Mallo was not dealt with by Barca’s defence and Pique inexplicably gave Aspas all the time he needed to dribble to the edge of the area and drill a left-footed effort into the far corner.
Astonishingly, Celta were celebrating a third goal moments later. More panic in the away backline gave Daniel Wass the chance to send in a cross from the right looking for Aspas, but Mathieu – back in the team as one of four changes – got there first and inadvertently diverted his attempted diving clearance past Ter Stegen and in.
Luis Enrique brought on Andres Iniesta for his 600th club appearance in place of Rafinha at the break and it was his dipping cross from the left which set up Pique’s thumping header after 58 minutes, with Alvarez failing in his attempt to get there first.
All of a sudden, the momentum was with Barca and within six minutes they had another goal back.
Andre Gomes was bundled to the ground by a combination of Nemanja Radoja and Mallo, with Neymar sending Alvarez the wrong way from the resulting spot-kick for his fourth LaLiga goal of the campaign.
Neymar wanted another penalty, but his claim was denied despite protesting that home captain Mallo had tugged him to the ground.
Celta struck again 13 minutes from time when Ter Stegen collected a backpass from Jordi Alba and proceeded to chip an attempted pass straight against the head of Hernandez, who – along with a jubilant home crowd – could not believe his luck as the ball bounced in.
Ter Stegen did make a key save when Aspas had a golden chance to make it five and that allowed Barca to revive hopes of a recovery again when impressive play from substitute Denis Suarez down the right set up another Pique header, this one from close range.
The visitors had two decent chances to seal a remarkable draw after that 87th-minute goal as the drama continued right up until the final whistle.
Neymar headed a chance wide from Arda Turan’s cross, before Pique almost made it a hat-trick of headers, failing to find the target from another Denis Suarez delivery as a night to remember ended with Celta celebrations.
The42 is on Snapchat! Tap the button below on your phone to add!
Since they did away with the mindless violence the game has lost its appeal
It’s not really a great spectacle as a sport. Sticking it in TG4 is hardly likely to broaden its appeal. Time to call a halt in my eyes especially when the Aussies could not be bothered to send over a proper team however gallant their intentions were .
“Sticking it in TG4 is hardly likely to broaden its appeal.” Has anyone encouraged you to broaden your horizons?
Some (most) of us don’t speak Irish Louise. Should be commentary in English.
Have more faith in your ability to learn. It’s not all that difficult to listen to and understand the language.
Well considering you don’t have a grasp on the English language, I’m not surprised you cannot speak Gaeilge!! I can see why your glass is half empty, I think you mean “commentary should be through/ in English”… Ah the predictability of….;-)
Deborah,
1. “Well” should be followed by a comma.
2. “…grasp ‘of’ the English language”, not ‘on’.
Smarty pants
Load of crap it looked like Australia hadn’t a clue for the first quarter
Bring back the killings, that’s what made this pointless game for me!!! Zero atmosphere at the game too!!
Will ye relax. Its an opportunity our amateur players get to represent their Country. Reward for all the work and commitment they have given all year.
Well done Ireland and the 3 laois lads! Finish them off the next day.
Honestly it was a poor game. Expect a rough game next week.
Sh!te game.nothing at stake just looked like like a training match.
Pointless game
Patently false. 92 points were scored
If you don’t like this sport then don’t pay any heed to it. Simple.
There was a decent crowd there tonight and clearly sponsors and players embrace the concept so that’s why it’s still going. Nobody is being forced to watch it, if it doesn’t take your fancy that’s fine but there’s no need for everyone to bang on about how they think it’s pointless, just change the channel if it bothers you that much.
If you think the players “embrace the concept” you clearly did not watch the match. The Aussies didn’t even know the rules, and I can’t blame them. I was there and it was clear the lads were only over for a 2 week holiday and I’d do the same myself. Just glad it was only 15eur.
It’s a great game. Fast, exciting and has a well defined tackle, the bane of Football in my opinion. I think if it was marketed well, and played every year, it would be very popular.
The problem is it’s marketed badly.
Having the game on TG4 makes it difficult for non-Irish speakers to follow the rules.
You only hear about it a couple of weeks before it starts.
Having the first game in a regional venue is good in theory but seeing an empty terrance looks bad.
And the break it takes every 3 years is pointless and confusing.
The fact it’s on a Saturday night, is an international sport and is a physical game means it’s very marketable, especially to younger people. Some blood thumping adverts run during the all Ireland finals would generate huge interest and wouldn’t take a huge amount of effort.
I think with a bit more marketing and an attempt to improve the atmosphere, a la Leinster Rugby or American football, would really add to the occasion.
It’s almost as if the organisers, the GAA and AFL, aren’t sure if they want it to succeed or not.
TL;TR It’s a great game that would benefit from better marketing and showmanship.
Whatever about the merits of the game, I think it’s on its last legs, as there is literally zero interest in it in Australia. Even here in AFL-obsessed Melbourne, you wouldn’t know this game was on.
The main quality paper here – The Age – has a 20 page sport supplement every Sat and Sun. During the AFL season about 75% of that space is devoted to AFL. Yesterday (in the AFL off season), there were 2.5 pages devoted to AFL, of which about 1/8 of a page related to the international rules game. Today, there are 2 pages on AFL, with no mention of the international rules other than a single line informing readers that a match report is available online. It really says something when the international rules series is not even the main AFL-related story, at a time of year when there is no actual AFL taking place.
The writing is on the wall when you have a sport that is only relevant to two countries and one of those countries has completely lost interest.
Surely this is more to do with the timing of the game than lack of interest? It would have been impossible to get a match report onto the paper, due to the lateness of the kickoff.
It’s not that I expected a match report in the Sunday Age (obviously – the game took place on Sunday here!). But usually if an event is of interest the papers would have previews and other general coverage.
Anyway, it’s now Monday and the intl rules has been given about the same amount of space as Australian basketball and baseball (neither of which are very popular here). The game wasn’t even mentioned on any of the tv news shows I saw yesterday either.
Better than xfactor but that would not be difficult!!
That match wasn’t even mentioned in the media over here,as for cry factor its on EVERY single ad break,is every 10 minutes.
Bastardised rules. No thanks.
A mongrel game for a …
Every code of football has bastardised rules
Its a pity that genuine amatuer wholehearted GAA players were forced to pick between club and country for a series that the professional AFL pay lip service to
Rubbish sport, Mickey Harte was right
What is the point? It was on in the pub and that’s all I could think about it.
It’s an excuse to go to the pub
Well said. Any excuse is a good one.
We’ll done lad,s
Up Cavan
Welcome to World Trophy Football or wtf for short ,
Feck I missed the semi finals again…
‘Hilarious’
I’d probably watch it if they played the oval ball, atleast give the Aussies a chance since there not allowed to apply mindless thuggery anymore.
I heard there was 275,000 at the match and they were all speaking Irish, even the aboriginals, who probably discovered Australia, having set off from west cork in 6000bc with a cargo of stone hurleys and Gaelic poetry. Long before the British I might add. It’s a matter of great pride to the 42,000,000 members of the GAA. As joe brolly once said “god I’m great ammant I, hi”
Gold
It’s horrendously bad.
Why is this game always played with a round ball? Not very fair on the Aussies is it?
Worst game of football I’ve ever been too!!!
Absolutely dead match…….,
Ah shut up god we are a nation of f##king begrudgers well done lads from all of us in Oz anythime we beat the “worlds most sporting nation” is a good day for me..
Suppose this is the gaa world cup final?