Valencia v Celtic: Europa League last 32, second leg – live!

21 February 2019 17:55
Live updates from the 5.55pm GMT kick-offYou can email Paul here or tweet him hereLive scoreboard: all the latest from Thursday’s matches 5.55pm GMT 1 min: We have kickoff! Celtic get the game going ... 5.54pm GMT Valencia are wearing all white. Celtic are sporting their fluorescent lime green away kit with black patches: it’s a mess, to be fair. 5.52pm GMT The teams have arrived on the pitch, where they receive a lusty greeting from the spectators: there are plenty of empty seats but lots of noise, thanks notably to thousands of crooning away fans. 5.43pm GMT Regarding his team selection, notably the back three, he explains: “[Valencia] keep two strikers up even when they’re defending and they have pace. So our [back] three give us a chance to control that. It also gives us bodies between the lines ... and still allows you width in the game to open them up ... yet compact when we haven’t got the ball. Hopefully it’ll work for us.”He explains that Burke has been given the nod up front because of his “searing pace” so “that gives us an out ball, which is important ... and if we need to change it, we’ve got quality on the bench.” 5.19pm GMT Valencia: Neto; Wass, Garay, Diakhaby, Lato; Torres, Soler, Parejo, Guedes; Sobrino, MinaSubs: Domenech, Gameiro, Cheryshev, Gaya, Lee, Coquelin, Cenetelles 4.59pm GMT Hello. You join us with Celtic on the verge of a historic achievement … or routine elimination from the Europa League. Having lost last week’s home leg 2-0, Brendan Rodgers’ team need to win handsomely in Spain, where they’ve won exactly zero of their previous 15 matches. Coincidentally, 15 is also the number of times that Valencia have gone into the second leg of a European tie with a lead – and they have lost that lead exactly zero times. So yes, Celtic have a mighty challenge on their hands. But Rodgers says that if they can nick the first goal and cut out the elementary mistakes that caused last week’s defeat, then something special could be on the cards. Those are two whopping big “ifs” but this potential triumph wouldn’t be worth getting excited about if Celtic were starting from an easy place. As things stand, this is a must-follow. At least for a while. Continue reading......read full article

Source: TheGuardian