‘Celtic motivated to win again’

Virgil van Dijk says that Celtic are fully motivated to try and repeat last year’s result against Barcelona, even if they’d also just settle for a draw.

The Scottish Premier League outfit welcome Barca back to Celtic Park this Tuesday for the second matchday of the Champions League group phase.

The fixture comes almost a year on from Celtic’s 2-1 win over the Catalans in last year’s competition at the same stage, whilst this season Barca arrive in Scotland without Lionel Messi.

“Messi is a big star, but the club have players with worldwide reputations and despite his absence it will be a tough game,” Van Dijk has reflected in today’s pre-game conference.

“We want to repeat the script from last year. It was a great game in defence and we are motivated to repeat what we experienced last year.

“I wasn’t here last year, I was not playing for Celtic. But that win reached all corners of the world. For this season we believe that we have our chances to win the game.

“We cannot afford to miss chances to score. We have to score with some of the chances we create in the area. Barca are very good, they want the ball and we will look to complicate things.

“Right now we are content with a draw. It would be a good result and we would still have a chance of qualifying.

“Neymar? I have wanted to play against him and against all the others. They are global stars as well as players at Barcelona. Like Messi, he is an exceptional player.”

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