The growing intolerance among the fans has recently been a great cause of concern for every side playing at foreign soils and if there has been some kind of bitterness among the players, it is assumed such a game would have to be taken strictly by the ground security personnel to avoid any unwanted situation and last Barcelona vs Celtic game at Celtic Park was supposed to be one such game and after Neymar is accused for getting Scott Brown sent off when they met three years ago, everyone expected it to get worsen with each passing boo in the ground and during the game when there happens to be an ongoing battle with Celtic right-back Mikael Lustig, security staff at the ground got their fire arms ready to face any situation but thankfully all the boos for the Brazil star reached deafening levels when he was withdrawn in the second half. But Barca manager Luis Enrique seemed to be grossly satisfied with fans behavior during the game, in fact, he called it European football’s ‘greatest atmospheres’ they played in after conceiving a comfortable victory over home side.
Talking about the game and if his players got the fair treatment from home crowd, Enrique said in his postgame news conference, “I think it’s something that happened in the final 10 minutes of the game, before then the fans were exceptional. Unfortunately I missed ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone‘ before the game, but it’s not so bad because I’ve been here before as a spectator. I think it’s one of the greatest atmospheres you can see in European football. I don’t think it’s worth mentioning the five or 10 minutes when there’s riffraff between a Barca player and the fans. We took off to give him a rest, nothing tactical.”
Adding about injury worries to Neymar, Gerard Pique, or Jordi Alba, 46-year-old furthered, “We changed Pique because of a blow he took on the calf in the first half, so we took him off as a precaution. I was not thinking about Real Sociedad, I was thinking about not overloading Pique and Alba with minutes, given both have come back from injuries.”
This is something that is also felt by the Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers and he also called it a fair faceoff between Neymar and Lustig, he said, “It was a tough night for both players. Mika is experienced and I thought he was excellent. You can’t stand off Neymar, he will go inside you, outside you and even behind you. He has great quality, so Mika had to be aggressive, fight, push and he did that and Neymar reacts to that. In that battle I thought Mika did very well.”
Neymar: Christian Bertrand / Shutterstock.com