FC Basel 0-1 Celtic, MLS All Star XI

By: JT | July 6th, 2007

“Pre-season friendlies are like foreplay: they titillate yet never satisfy.” Or so says the The Herald, but I’m inclined to agree. Celtic took on old European foe FC Basel last night in their opening friendly. A sweet Kenny Miller finish was enough for the 1-0 win, with Strachan bringing on eight substitutes at the break. It was only the third day of training, and the Celts were apparently brutalized in their session earlier in the day. Unbelievably, a reported 8000 people showed up to see this encounter. Here’s the winner in super High Def:

All the big news was in the midfield. That’s Icelandic whiz Teddy Bjarnason creating the goal you see above playing in the Nakamura role in the right of midfield. New Bhoy #2 Donati looked good, and Gravesen looked baffled in the first half. New Bhoy #1 Scott Brown was all energy and Jarosik looked lazy in the second. Mark Brown made some good saves, and we should all hope to never again see Bobo and Pressley together in central defense. Thems some heavy legged boys, if you know what I’m sayin. Pressley played the whole match, but abdicated the armband to McManus when he came on after the half.

Next up for the Celts are BSC Young Boys, or Young Boys of Berne, or whatever you want to call them. They’ve got quite the cosmopolitan squad, those Young Boys. That’s on Saturday.

Since every feed I have set up for Celtic news has been flooded by the MLS All-Star XI, I’ll mention it here. Normally the result of a friendly is not of concern to me, provided everyone stays healthy. But I really want to win this one. I’ve seen way too much chatter about last year’s All-Star match against a very preseason Chelsea squad being an indicator of the strength of MLS. People actually cite that as a reason why MLS teams could compete in the Premiership. I don’t want to have to deal with a year of Celtic’s name replacing Chelsea’s in that ridiculous banter.

The Celts will have four friendlies and about three weeks of training under their belt, so they’ll likely take it as a more serious match than Chelsea did, depending on the conditions of course. Heat and altitude will be factors in how Strachan handles the situation. But judging by an email I got from the club yesterday dubbing them “the mighty MLS All-Stars”, the Bhoys’ll be ready to go. I’ll talk more about it as the match approaches.