SPREAD

Day 2 started off with the European Champions Barcelona play the African Champions Al-Ahly. With a half full stadium, the crowd was never going to be loud. However anticipation was growing as Lionel Messi was annouced to be on the bench. Pep Guardiola had guaranteed him 45 minutes on friday. 

The game was a comfortable 4-1 win for Barcelona, although they gave a better perfomance against spurs 48 hours earlier. Al-Ahly also had a fair amount of chances but failed to take all except one of them. Ruben Rochina was troublesome again much like friday and it was his hard work that set up Bojan to tuck away from a narrow angle. Hany El Egezy equalised for the Egyptians soon after only to see Rueda snatch the another goal. The catalan youngster switched the ball onto his left foot and unleashed a 25 yard pile-driver into the top corner. 

Another 2 goals in the 2nd half from Suarez and Pedro saw Barcelona take the game to 4-1 with 3 of their goals coming from narrow angled well placed shots. The introduction of Messi at half-time failed to invigurate the game but did put some fire into a few of the Ahly tackles heading his way. Having just come back to fitness, Guardiola was visibly worried about his prize asset's protection.

The second game saw Celtic against Tottenham and the hoops faithful turned out in their droves. They were in good voice even before the game had begun. Throughout the entire tournament, the vast majority of the press had felt that spurs had underperformed. They didn't have their ideal central defenders for either game and it showed. Compared to a world re-known Barcelona academy and full strength Celtic, the press' judgement was slightly unfair. They leaked two easy goals in the first half. Chris Killen and Georgios Samaras made light work of the defence with their goals. Killen got a free header past Gomes and Samaras drove his own straight line run from the half way line to fire in from the edge of the box. The second half drew out to be keep ball session, as some weak Spurs defending let Celtic through a number of times but it went unpunished.

Celtic lifted the trophy on their first ever visits to Wembley and across both games it was deserved. Bad defending by both oppositions played a part, and definately the Barcelona youngsters left a good account of themselves. The player I most enjoyed this tournament was Ruben Rochina. I was really impressed with his level of skill and his general ability.