Celtic suffered their earliest Champions League exit in 15 years after falling to a shock defeat at the hands of Ferencvaros in Glasgow.
It seemed Neil Lennon’s side had recovered from David Siger’s early goal for the Hungarian champions, when Ryan Christie’s deflected strike levelled the one-legged tie.
However, Tokmac Nguen’s breakaway goal snatched victory for Ferencvaros and ensured Celtic’s worst performance in the competition since Artmedia Bratislava knocked them out in 2005.
The Scottish champions now drop into the Europa League third qualifying round, the draw for which takes place on Tuesday.
Questions will likely be asked of Celtic and Lennon, just as they were before the game when it emerged that Odsonne Edouard was injured and Christie would be deployed in his place.
The manager insisted that strikers Albian Ajeti and Patryk Klimala were only fit enough for the bench.
Nevertheless, the hosts looked to have plenty of attacking threat as James Forrest forced an early parry from goalkeeper Denes Dibusz.
Ferencvaros head coach Sergei Rebrov had sacrificed striker Franck Boli from their 2-0 win over Djurgardens in the previous round, but his side were not intent on sitting back and replacement Siger made an instant impact.
Hatem Abd Elhamed was posted missing as Nguen, who scored a double against the Swedes, broke quickly and fed Somalia to win a corner. When it reached Siger, the midfielder was allowed too much to time to pick out the far corner from 18 yards.
Ferencvaros’ lack of match fitness began to tell as they defended ever deeper and Celtic peppered their goal with shots that failed to seriously trouble the goalkeeper.
Half-time allowed the Hungarians some respite, but the flow of possession continued after the break and a lovely spell of passing around the edge of the visitors’ box ended with Christie’s side-footed effort clipping a defender’s head and soaring over goalkeeper Dibusz.
Dibusz turned a Ntcham volley off the underside of the crossbar and then a low Christie drive wide as Celtic turned the screw.
But then came the goal that proved their downfall. Nguen outstripped Elhamed to a long ball out of defence, outmuscled the full-back, and slipped a finish past goalkeeper Vasilis Barkas from a narrow angle.
What did we learn?
On this evidence, Celtic rely too heavily on Odsonne Edouard and paid for the French striker’s absence through injury.
Lennon’s experiment of using Christie up front instead of Klimala and summer signing Ajeti failed to pay dividends against a side who were only playing their third fixture of the season.
Ferencvaros have shown in recent European fixtures they are hard to beat away from home, but Celtic have lost at home to a side who probably lack the quality to progress much further in the Champions League.
More to follow.
