Late http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Nikica-Jelavic-c27906 strike helps Rangers beat Celtic to lift CIS Insurance Cup
Nikica Jelavic’s extra time winner helped Rangers beat Celtic 2-1 to lift the CIS Insurance Cup at the Hampden Park on Sunday.
Celtic made several changes to their starting line-up that beat Inverness Caledonian Thistle 2-1 in their last game. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Georgios-Samaras-c14641 and Gary Hooper started upfront in a 4-4-2 formation for the hosts.
On the other hand, Rangers made three changes to their team that lost to http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Kyle-Lafferty-c21560 started upfront in a 4-5-1 formation for the visitors.
Celtic enjoyed the early possession but http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Rangers-c40314 came close of scoring inside the opening five minutes of the game. Sasa Papac played a lovely diagonal ball to Jelavic, whose weak effort went straight into Fraser Forster’s hands. Couple of minutes later,
Forster made another fantastic finger tip save to deny Lafferty’s powerful shot from going into the top corner.
In the 16th minute, Hooper played a lovely ball in the box for http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Marc-Wilson-c23501, who went down under the challenge of Rangers defender but the referee did not notice it and waived play on.
Both teams created several straightforward goalscoring opportunities but Rangers opened the scoring in the 23rd
minute. Steven Davies controlled a long ball before firing a shot from the edge of the box and into the bottom corner to make it 1-0 for the Blues.
Nine minutes later, Celtic managed to level the scoring. Emilio Izaguirre’s lofted ball was headed by Samaras into the path of Joe Ledley, who thumped a header from five yards to make it 1-1.
Rangers twice came close of scoring immediately after the second half. Lafferty headed wide from Gregg Wylde’s cross, followed by http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Steven-Whittaker-c34215 producing a wonderful save from Forster to parry away his powerful drive.
Rangers had all the dominance in the second half and continued to bombard the Celtic goal but could not find the killer touch. Celtic too had a good spell of attack after the hour mark and they came extremely close to score when Hooper smashed a clear chance
miles over the bar.
Both teams failed to score in the allotted 90 minutes and the game went into extra time. The match continued at the same pace and the Blues managed to take the lead in the 98th minute. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Vladimir-c36322 Weiss played a quick free kick towards Jelavic, who
outplayed http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Charlie-Mulgrew-c8844 with his pace and slotted a shot between the legs of Forster to make it 2-1 for Rangers.
The Celts made several attacks to equalise but all of them went in vain. Their best chance came just before the end of second extra time period, when Whittaker made a splendid block from two yards from Hooper’s strike to deny Celtic and hand Rangers the
victory to become the Champions of CIS Cup.
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