Thursday’s soccer news starts in the Scottish Premiership where Cameron carter Vickers’s Celtic beat Hearts 3-1 at home. Falling behind in the 6th minute, Celtic’s Daizen Maeda equalized in the 25th and Kyogo Furuhashi scored in the 60th. Saed Haksabanovic scored Celtic’s third goal in the 84th. Celtic’s lead at the top of the Premiership table is nine points with 79 points from 28 games played.
“The quality of our goals was great,” Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou said. “Kyogo was brilliant tonight and there were so many opportunities to play him in and we just have to be a bit smarter in the way we play our football. He never stops running and he broke through with the perfect timing for the equalizer and it was a great ball for Daizen as well.”
Malik Tillman wasn’t in the squad for Rangers in their 4-1 win at Hibernian. Trailing from an 8th minute own-goal, Rangers’ James Tavernier equalized from the penalty spot in the 12th. Antonio-Mirko Colak scored in the 34th with Fashion Sakala making it 3-1 Rangers in the 52nd. Colak scored again in the 58th minute.
“I’m absolutely delighted,” Rangers manager Michael Beale said. “I thought the team started poorly on the set-piece, but after that I thought some of our play was good. We could, and probably should, have scored three or four goals more which shows how dominant it was. That was our best performance since we were last in Edinburgh and it was because our energy and commitment to pressing all over was fantastic.”
The Concacaf Champions League continued with Vancouver having no trouble in their first-leg with Real Espana, taking a 5-0 lead into the second-leg. Tristan Blackmon opened the scoring in the 21st minute at BC Place. Vancouver’s Ryan Raposo doubled the lead in the 59th and an own-goal made it 3-0 in the 64th. Pedro Vite scored in the 70th minute and Brian White finished off the goals in the 77th. Whitecaps goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka made two saves to keep the clean sheet.
FRIDAY’S SOCCER TV
Ligue 1 on beIN Sport: Liile vs Lyon at 3pm. La Liga on ESPN Deportes: Cadiz vs Getafe at 3pm. Primeira Liga on GolTV: Porto vs Estoril at 3:15pm. Liga MX on TUDN: Puebla vs Chivas at 10pm ET.
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