Europa League play-off round - Full Time Report: FC Utrecht v Celtic
Neil Lennon's revamped and new look Celtic were scheduled to travel to the Stadion Galgenwaard, to play the second leg of their Europa League qualifier game, with FC Utrecht. The Scottish team were taking with them a two goal advantage, which they had achieved the previous week.
Celtic qualified for the Europa League play off, after suffering a shock defeat at the hands of Braga in the UEFA Champions League. They were however the firm favourties going into the game, after destroying Utrecht in the Celtic Park during the first leg of this tie. It was a game in which Celtics new signing, Beram Kayal, proved to the team and the fans, just why he was signed to play for the team.
Utrecht however had a very impressive run in in their domestic league this past weekend. They defeated, Willem II, by a score line of three goals to nil. The game was by far one of the most one sided games that had been witnessed in the Dutch League so far this season. Utrecht have been on a good form in the Eredivise so far and were looking to take that form into their Europa League qualifier game. The Teams striker, Ricky van Wolfswinkel had looked fantastic so far and was easily the player to watch out for on the Dutch side. Along with the striker, the talismanic midfielder Michael Silberbauer who, previously used to play for Copenhagen, was also looking to impress tonight.
Celtic have also been impressive in their domestic league so far. This previous weekend the Scottish team, humilliated St.Mirren by defeating the team with a score like of four goals to nil.The margin of victory would have been much larger had Celtic converted more of the chances that they had created.
The referee finally blew the whistle to kick things on after being urged on by the home crowd to speed things off and the match was finally underway.
The line up for the game was as follows:
Utrecht: T. Cornelisse , A. Schut , J. Wuytens, M. Nesu, M. Silberbauer, N. Asare, J. Lensky , E. Duplan, D. Mertens , R. van Wolfswinke, M. Vorm
Celtic: L. Zalusa, D.Cha, D.Majstorovic J. Hooiveld, J. Ledley,E. Juárez, S. Brown, G. Samaras, B. Kaya,l J. Forrest
The match was initially dominated by Celtic but soon after, the home team, showed just why they should not be counted out. On the ninth minute mark Van Wolfswinkel was open in front of goal, but a terrific block from Ledley saw the ball scramble out of harms way.
Two minutes later however, Utrecht took the lead. After a poor tackle on Silberbauer led to a penalty for the home side. Wolfswinkel stepped up and dispatched the ball away brilliantly to give the home team the lead.
Seven minutes later there was another penalty, for the home team. Wolfswinkel shot was almost put away by Zaluska but his touch wasn't strong enough and the ball nestled into the back of the net. At this point the tie was level at two goals a piece and both the goals were scored by the teams in their home grounds, so their was no away goal advantage.
As the half time whistle was blown the highly contested match, stood at two nil in favour or, Utrecht. Both the managers knew that either one of them could win this tie and hence had a lot to do at half time.
The second half got underway with Utrecht looking to go all out. Three minute into the restart, Wolfswinkle had his third and Utrecht's third goal of the night. It was a goal that put the home team three two up on aggregate and now Celtic had it all to play for. They went from being two goals up on aggregate to falling behind by a goal in fifty minutes.
On the sixty first minute, it seemed to be game over for Celtic. Maguire hammered a rocket of a shot into the bottom left hand corner of the goal, which added some icing on a disastrous night for the Scottish team.
After the fourth goal, Celtic tried to go into over kill, while at the same time Utrecht seemed to be more than happy with the score line.
The home team seemed to be in no hurry to go anywhere, since they were more than confident that the game was already in the bag. This started to frustrate the Celtic players, who started missing almost every chance they got and were all over the place.
The match ended with Celtic trying to make a break through but failing repeatedly with the chances they created.
The score line read four nil in favor of Utrecht at the end of the night and four two in favour of the team on aggregate. Celtic were knocked out of the Europa League just like they were knocked out of the Champions league.
What this means for Celtic is, that the team can now focus solely on the domestic league and hence increase their chances of going home with the win. There were also no Scottish teams left in the competition since all the teams from Scotland seemed to crash out one after the other.
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