Celtic Glasgow’s first win was Manchester United’s first loss on American soil as Craig Beattie’s goal in the 71st minute gave the Scots a 2-1 decision over the Red Devils on Wednesday.
Scheduled to play a tour-high four matches, Celtic were playing for the third time in five days during the Champions World tour.
They lost to Chelsea 4-2 in Saturday’s tour opener in Seattle and to Liverpool 5-1 on Monday in East Hartford, Connecticut.
But facing the tour headliners in front of 55 000 fans, the Scots played their most spirited match and dealt the first setback to Man U, who battled Bayern Munich to a boring 0-0 draw on Sunday in Chicago.
Beattie scored his fourth goal in three games when he latched on to a fine flank ball from Chris Sutton, blew past Roy Keane and nutmegged a helpless Tim Howard in goal.
”It was a tough game, obviously,” Beattie said. ”We played them last year and they have gotten better, so it was good to get the win.”
Missing some seven first-team players for a variety of reasons, Manchester United were forced once more to field a second-string squad.
Manchester United’s next match is on Saturday against AC Milan, while Celtic face AS Roma the same day. — Sapa-AFP