At Celtic Park, a friendly between Celtic and Leeds United is underway.

The friendly was a big one, with a charity cup and an agreement to use all ticket proceeds to charity in the Glasgow area.

Before the game, coaches Martin O'Neill and George Lee joined hands to donate an additional £50,000 each on behalf of both clubs to a local welfare home in Glasgow, where the caddies were also served by children from the home.

Leeds United sent Paul Robinson, Ian Hart, Juris Mathieson, Martin Albchesten, Danny Mills, Thomas Gravison, Edgar Davies, Alan Smith, Jesper Glenschal, Dennis Romedal and Robin van Persie to almost be the main starting line-up for Leeds next season, except for Dominic Matteo who could drop either Mathieson or Albchesten.

As for the Celtics, the lineup has hardly changed compared to previous years. The main changes are the departure of two of the Swedes, with John Mjallby, who captained the Swedish national team moving to La Liga side Levante this summer, and who played with the Swedish national team at the European Championship in Portugal this year but did not play. His place was replaced by Danish player Ulrik Laursen.

The departure of another Swedish player was fatal for Celtic. Henrik Larsson scored 242 goals in 315 appearances in all competitions during his seven seasons with Celtic. In the summer of 2001, he was named Europe's top scorer for 35 league goals the previous season, winning the European Golden Boot. Including his goals in other competitive competitions, his tally for the season totals a staggering 53.

Larsson's departure has caused the firepower of the Celtics' forward line to plummet. O'Neill had to push Bulgarian Stiljan Petrov to the front to partner Christoph Sutton and let Jackie McNamara fill Petrov's place.

As soon as the game started, Leeds United pressed high in the front court according to Lee's tactical requirements, and Celtic was very uncomfortable.

Celtic's right side is fine, and McNamara, who plays as a midfielder, is a right wing-back and often helps the team's right wing-back Agatte to share the pressure.

But the left side suffered.

In the 8th minute of the game, Celtic's left midfielder Alan Thompson took the ball, and after taking two steps in his own half, he found that the opposite fullback Mills and defender Gravison grabbed it, Thompson is also a veteran in his 30s, and he has seen a lot of wind and waves, but it is too scary to stand these two bald heads, and after slowing down, he wants to find the team's midfielder Neil Lennon or Paul Lambert, but one of these two people stands next to Smith and one stands Davis.

Seeing that Gavison was about to grab it, he thought about passing it back, and slowly organized it again, so he passed the ball back to Laursen. At this time, the distance between Laursen and Thompson was a little far, and the ball was not passed quickly, and the right winger of Leeds United, Romedahl, had already set his eyes on the ball, grabbed the ball before Laurson, and used his speed to pass his Danish fellow.

Celtic originally played a 352, because they were pressed very fiercely by Leeds United, and the two full-backs often returned, so it became a 532.

However, because of a mistake of his own, the full-back was behind Romedale and a central defender was passed.

Celtic's centre-back Balde rushed to make up for it and stuck to Romerdal.

Balde was also very smart, he didn't deliberately stretch his legs, he didn't stick to Romedahl, and he always kept a certain distance from him.

Romerdal looked, you don't come up. He had already gone to the bottom when he had changed, but recently in his joint training and tactics classes, Lee has been emphasizing the need to cut more inward. Romedal gritted his teeth, dunked the ball and prepared to cut inside from the right wing.

At this time, Farhalen, another central defender on the right side of Celtic, also added to the middle and was staring at Van Persie.

Romerdal didn't come hard either, a cross across the board.

Instead of passing the ball to Van Persie, he passed the ball to Smith, who was following behind Van Persie, and Smith did not stop the ball and passed the ball directly to Glen Charles on the line of the penalty area on the left.

No offside, single knife!

Glen Schal took a step and saw Celtic goalkeeper Douglas attacking, and Farhalen didn't care about Van Persie, and also made up for it to help block together.

Glen Schal didn't take the credit either, taking another step and an inverted triangle was passed down the middle, where Van Persie easily pushed the ball into the empty net.

1 to 0!

Van Persie went straight to hug Glen Schal after scoring and he felt that the two Danes on the flanks were much more comfortable playing than before.

At this time, Romerdal and Smith also came over and gave Van Persie a simple hug, while Davies and Graveson high-fived Van Persie on the way back after celebration.

Smith has completely forgotten about the argument with Van Persie on the pitch the other day.

After all, it's a friendly match, so there's no need to make a big splash.

In the coach's seat, George Li also simply high-fived each other with several other coaches.

Celtic goalkeeper Douglas fished the ball out of the goal and drove a big foot into the midfield to give his striker the kick.

Here Celtic kick off and the game continues.

Within ten minutes of the opening kick-off, the team was behind and Martin O'Neill kept shouting from the sidelines, setting up tactics.

But the Celtic are still not comfortable with the pressing of Leeds United's frontcourt, originally thought that Leeds United would also grab the fierce at the beginning, and make a three-board axe at the beginning, but more than a dozen points have passed, and Leeds United has not retreated so much, or pressing in the frontcourt, so that the Celtics' attack cannot be organized at all, and they can only frequently use long passes to find their 1.91-meter center Christoph Sutton.

However, George Li had already arranged it before the game, and directly asked Albchestenson to compete with Sutton, because Albchester is 1.88 meters, and it will not be too bad to compete with Sutton for the header, and if Mathieson, who is in his early 1.8 meters, goes to defend Sutton, he may have to suffer.

The Celtics can't play the offense now, and the defense is noisy, so they have to be careful when they smash the ball in the backcourt, for fear of being directly tackled by Leeds United and counterattacked.

On the other hand, Leeds is not in a hurry to attack after grabbing the ball, often a few people in the backfield keep passing the ball, and Gravison does not go up, cooperating with Mathieson and Albucheson to pound and pound there, after all, several brothers in the front court have been robbing fiercely, and they must also rest properly. Even Ian Hart often retreated back and forth, cooperating with the transition between the three of them.

Celtic have also tried to press up front, but sometimes Ghavedson is more back than the two centre-backs.

On 33 minutes, Albchesten, facing Celtic's pressing, passed the ball back to Gravesson.

Sutton went up to grab Gravison again, and Graveson passed the ball to Hart on the left, and Sutton chased after him, even Agat, who was here with the Celtics.

Hart was one and a half high and passed the ball to Robinson, by which time the Leeds goalkeeper was already standing on the line of the penalty area, he pulled the ball, a long pass, to Mills on the right, and Mills was close to the halfway line.

There was no one around Mills, and a chest stop stopped the ball and looked up.

At this time, because the focus of Celtic's defense just now was on the left side of Leeds United, there was no one on Leeds United's right.

Mills made a short pass to Davis.

The Dutch 'Wild Boar' spent most of the first half on the left side of the middle before he suddenly appeared on the right side of Leeds United.

After the "wild boar" got the ball, he began to push forward to the left front, and several people in Leeds United's frontcourt, Van Persie, Glen Schal, Romedahl, and Smith were all running forward.

And several people in the Celtics backcourt were desperately pushing back, and no one went up to grab the ball.

Because if you don't retreat, you can't do it, just three central defenders, four people in front of you are running, and Thompson on the left side was also taken away by Mills who stepped forward, and then the midfielder went to grab Davies, if Davies passed the ball, then Leeds United would play more and less.

On the Celtic side, the midfield and backfield are retreating, and the midfield and midfield have not had time to rush back, and the two sides are a little disjointed.

Davis pushed all the way to the outside of the penalty area, and saw that the defender on the opposite side had not come up, and raised his foot to shoot a long shot, and the ball whistled towards the top left corner of the goal.

Celtics goalkeeper Douglas reached for it, but the ball was too fast, which changed the direction of the ball slightly, and the ball hit the crossbar.

"Bell!" It's loud.

The ball hit the crossbar and bounced to the feet of Van Persie on the foot of the left penalty area, who paused for a moment to shoot.

But the ball came too suddenly, Van Persie didn't stop much at once, stopped a little far away from him, and was destroyed by Celtic defender Farhalen.

“NO!”“ Damn it. ”

There was a flurry of chickens and dogs jumping in the Leeds United's dugout.

Thinking that Davies' first shot on goal was about to score, the coaching staff and the bench all got up maneuverily, but the first shot was missed, but the ball reached Van Persie's feet.

George Lee had already raised his hands, Casper on Kidd's shoulders, McGee kicking his legs and substitute goalkeeper Ellavi pulling Schmeichel's clothes, all waiting for the goal.

It was destroyed by the Celts.

"It's not the first time that you should let him focus on stopping the ball." Cruyff Jr. suggested to George Lee.

"Look again, maybe it's too nervous." George Lee doesn't think there's a big problem either, after all, it's impossible for a striker to score with every shot.

After a corner kick from Leeds' side, the ball was confiscated by Celtic goalkeeper Douglas because of the low quality.

Douglas immediately drove up front with a big foot, as Leeds' two centre-backs were up front for corners, leaving Kelly and Graveson behind.

Celtic striker Sutton was pestered by Albchestenn for nearly 40 minutes, and finally seized the opportunity, taking advantage of the opposite central defender's lack of retreat, leaning on Leeds United full-back Kelly and stopping the ball.

He saw his teammate Petrov cutting in front and scored the ball to the side and passed it to Petrov.

As soon as Petrov was about to get the ball, he saw a white figure flying from the ground, and suddenly he was shoveled out of the sideline with the ball.

The linesman raises the flag, throw-in.

Gravison got up from the ground, spat to the side, and prepared to run back, ready to defend.

"Hey, Thomas, keep it up, don't get hurt."

George Lee made his two hands into a trumpet shape, put them in front of his mouth, and shouted loudly. I don't know if to let Graveson not hurt himself, or not to hurt others.

Anyway, Gravison nodded at him as he stepped back, and gave him a thumbs up.

At this time, Davis also happened to retreat from the front court to defend, passing by George Lee.

"Edgar, good shot, go on."

Davis, who was wearing sports glasses, smiled at George Lee, leaking out a mouthful of obvious white teeth.

"The two of them are really good, and they are great value for money." Cruyff Jr. said to George Lee.

"After all, it's my choice."

"I thought at first that you were going to put the two of them in parallel positions, with Smith in front."

'No, Thomas is not very fast, I hope he can act as a barrier in midfield. He doesn't need to be too far forward in the attack, he just needs to be responsible for combing and transitioning. George Lee said.

After George Lee finished talking about Gravidson, he started talking about Davis again.

'Edgar is different, he's got a lot of energy, he can help with the build-up, he can press, he can drop back to consolidate the defence, and he can also be involved in attacking and threaten the goal."

With 41 minutes played, Leeds United had another dangerous shot on goal.

Leeds United won a set-piece on the left side of the penalty area and Hart took it over.

Instead of opting to shoot, Hart drove the ball to the edge of the box and Smith jumped high to head home.

Douglas made the first save, but it was still Van Persie who ghostly appeared near the spot of the ball in the six-yard box, and this time did not stop the ball again, and sent the ball into the net with a blast.

“NICE！”

"Good shot."

"Didn't stop the ball, scored, awesome."

The accident appeared, the linesman raised the flag, offside.

The moment Van Persie touched the ball with Smith, he was half offside and was spotted by the linesman.

"Really?"

"Do you want to appeal?"

"Forget it, after all, it's a friendly match, there's no need."

There was gossip in the coach's seat, and George Lee suddenly said to Cruyff Jr.

"I don't need to practice stopping the ball, I don't think it's necessary." George Lee now has to believe in this evil, Van Persie's shot after not stopping the ball is world-class.

He turned to Casper again.

"Chris, go back and find out if there are any highlights of Van Persie's goals at Feyenoord and give me all the goals and shots he stole from the spot."

"George, are you kidding me, he's a winger at Feyenoord." Caspar took on this kind of work and began to curse.

^^^

In the second half, both sides tacitly agreed to replace the main force and replace the substitute players.

In the end, Leeds United won the Charity Cup 1-0.