Celtic vs Leicester City. International Champions Cup.
Celtic Park.
Leicester City win 6-5 on penalties.
Sunday 24 July 2016 07:24, UK
Leicester City beat Scottish champions Celtic on penalties (6-5) after a 1-1 draw in their International Champions Cup opener at Celtic Park.
Algeria international Riyad Mahrez, linked with a move to Arsenal, opened the scoring at the start of the second half for the visitors with a wonderful curled shot before 20-year-old Irish defender Eoghan O'Connell levelled things up just before the hour mark.
A raft of second-half substitutions highlighted the friendly aspect of the encounter and with no more goals it went straight to spot-kicks - a rule of the competition.
The first 10 penalties in the shoot-out were scored before James Forrest had his effort saved by Kasper Schmeichel, handing Daniel Amartey the chance to score Leicester's sixth to secure the win.
Both sides went into the game with different agendas and levels of fitness. Claudio Ranieri's English champions are still preparing for the defence of their title - it was only their second game - while Celtic have a crunch Champions League qualifier against Astana in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
Leicester fans got their first look at summer signing Nampalys Mendy, who started in midfield alongside Danny Drinkwater, while club-record signing Ahmed Musa started on the bench. There was also a start for Mahrez despite speculation linking him with a summer exit.
Brendan Rodgers, meanwhile, made three changes to the team that beat Lincoln Red Imps, with Saidy Janko, O'Connell and Emilio Izaguirre preferred to Forrest, Kieran Tierney and Erik Sviatchenko.
In an open start to the match it was Mahrez who was the source of the game's first opening, instigating a counter attack that saw Drinkwater set up Leonardo Ulloa on 11 minutes, but the Argentine was denied by a last-ditch challenge from Janko.
Mahrez was a constant threat and came close on 24 minutes when, having gathered a long diagonal pass and skipped past Emilio Izaguirre, he curled fractionally wide of Craig Gordon's far post.
The Foxes clearest opening came shortly after the half hour when full-back Ben Chilwell got on the end of Mahrez's in-swinging cross but couldn't head past Gordon from close range.
In the 36th minute, at the other end, Zieler made a fine save from Griffiths' thunderous 20-yard free-kick at the expense of a corner which he punched clear.
Within a minute of the restart Celtic were a goal behind when Mahrez worked a yard of space for himself at the edge of the box and curled a wonderful shot past the flailing Gordon.
It was a touch of class which was replicated by O'Connell when, during a spell of pressure, he guided the ball past substitute keeper Schmeichel at the far post, for his first goal for the Parkhead club.
Both sides immediately made another raft of substitutions but a constant was the touches of class shown by Mahrez who was given a round of applause by the Celtic fans in the 70th minute when he was replaced by Fuchs, with Celtic making even more changes.
However, the match was destined to be decided by penalties where the visitors came out on top, helped by Schmeichel.
