Celtic and Lyon Begin Title Defences with Wins

By Alan
Soccer City FC

The Scottish Premier League and the French Ligue 1 both started last weekend with champions Celtic and Lyon opening their title defences with victories respectively.

Celtic hosted St Mirren in a scrappy encounter at Parkhead and it took a penalty by Barry Robson to claim three points for the Glasgow outfit. The referee ruled that Dutch striker Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink had been held back by opposition defender Will Haining, who was sent off and Robson slotted the penalty that threw the advantage to Celtic. The first half gave the home crowd little to celebrate as St Mirren frustrated their counterparts into long-range efforts. The reigning champions soon found themselves defending in the second half with Boruc's hand tipping a shot by Mehmet onto the post. However, it was Robson's controversial penalty that handed Celtic a hard-fought win.

Rangers, hopeful of preventing Celtic from winning the title for a fourth year consecutively, beat Falkirk by a one-goal margin away from home. It was the contributions of two new strikers which gave them the victory. Andrius Velicka scored at close range from a Kyle Lafferty cross and the Gers will be hoping that the Lithuanian can continue to provide the firepower for them upfront this season. Ironically, Rangers were eliminated from the UEFA Champions League Second Qualifying Round by Velicka’s former club Kaunas. The UEFA Cup finalists will not be participating in Europe any further this season following their surprise exit from Europe’s elite club competition and so the season has not begun perfectly.

In other results, Hearts overcame Motherwell 3-2, Inverness CT’s new signing Barrowman was on the score sheet in their win against Aberdeen and Kilmarnock started their season by taking three points at the expense of Hibernian.

Across the channel, Lyon began their target of claiming an eighth successive French title with victory over Toulouse. Cameroon midfielder Jean Makoun made his debut one to remember by scoring the opening goal before Karim Benzema netted twice. Rennes came from a 3-1 deficit to salvage a 4-4 draw against Marseille, with new signings Bakary Kone and Hatem Ben Arfa involved in the scoring, while last year‘s runners-up Bordeaux beat Caen 2-1.