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 kick-off when it emerged leading striker Odsonne Edouard was injured and Christie would be deployed in his place.
The manager insisted that fellow forwards 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 midfielder 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 but they were efforts that failed to seriously trouble the visiting keeper.
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 Edouard and paid for the French striker’s absence.
Lennon’s experiment of using Christie up front instead of Klimala or Ajeti failed to pay dividends against a side who were only playing their third fixture of the season. Christie did his bit by scoring, but too many other chances were squandered.
Ferencvaros have shown in recent European fixtures they are hard to beat away from home – they are now eight unbeaten – but Celtic have lost at home to a side who probably lack the quality to progress much further in the Champions League.
Man of the match – Tokmac Nguen
What did they say?
Celtic manager Neil Lennon: “It was easier than I thought it was going to be. We didn’t take our chances and we had plenty of them. The second goal is really poor, really poor decision making, and it’s individual mistakes that have cost us again. It’s not fine going out at this stage of the competition, because we’re better than that.”
Ferencvaros head coach Sergei Rebrov: “We have beat one of the best teams we have faced in qualification last year and this year. They have quality players, but I think we deserved this. Most of the time we defended, but football is about scoring goals, not about the possession of the ball.”
What’s next?
Celtic are left to reflect on another bruising failure to reach the lucrative Champions League group stage and will look to pick themselves up for Sunday’s game at home to Motherwell as they continue their quest to win a 10th consecutive domestic league title.
