Bluebirds snatch win over Hoops
by Gareth Maher, 24 July 2008
Cardiff City claimed a 1-0 win over Celtic in the Algarve Cup pre-season tournament on Thursday evening in a game that was shown live on Setanta Sports.
A single strike from Joe Ledley on 17 minutes was enough to give the Coca-Cola Championship side victory over the reigning Clydesdale Bank SPL Champions.
While the match lacked many clear-cut chances for either team, it was a good work-out for the two clubs who will view this as a decent test to prove themselves ahead of the new season.
Celtic started the match without several star names, but still struggled to contain last season's FA Cup runners-up and could have conceded as early as the 6th minute if Steven Thompson's effort was only a few inches lower.
The former Rangers frontman smashed a thunderous left-footed shot against the crossbar after he peeled away from his marker and tried his luck from an acute angle.
That was a sign of things to come from Dave Jones' men, who had Thompson and Ross McCormack working well as a new-look duo up front.
However, it was Wales international Ledley that got the goal. Kevin McNaughton chipped a ball into Thompson, who beat Bobo Balde to the header and the ball fell to McCormack to flick on to Ledley before he rifled his shot past keeper Mark Brown.
It was an excellent goal and Cardiff looked the more likely to light up the scoreboard as the game went on with captain Stephen McPhail and new signing Miguel Comminges registering impressive shifts.
For Celtic, the bright sparks were Darren O'Dea, Paul Caddis, and Scott Brown, but lone striker Georgios Samaras was not given the service that he craved and had few chances to test Tom Heaton.
Scott McDonald, who came on in the second-half, did have a half-chance near the end of the game, but it wasn't to be for The Hoops on a night that they never really got going.