Celtic exit competition after 2-0 home defeat to Legia Warsaw

Posted Thursday, August 07, 2014 by skysports.com

Celtic will not feature in this season’s Champions League after an abject performance saw them slip to a 2-0 defeat to Legia Warsaw in the second leg of their third qualifying round tie at Murrayfield.

Michal Zyro: Opens the scoring for Legia against Celtic

The Hoops, who trailed 4-1 from last week’s first leg in Poland, were cheered on by a vociferous home crowd in Edinburgh and dominated early possession without creating any clear-cut openings.

Midway through the first half Adam Matthews went past three men and burst into the box before being hauled down only to see his penalty claims waved away by Paolo Silvio Mazzoleni.

But on 36 minutes Legia extended their lead in the tie when Michal Zyro, who scored in last week’s first leg, latched on to a long ball over the top before coolly slotting past Fraser Forster to make it 1-0 on the night.

The second half followed a similar pattern to the first with Celtic trying to take the game to their opponents.

Anthony Stokes carved out an opening after 55 minutes but his curled effort from the edge of the area was comfortably saved by Dusan Kuciak.

And just six minutes later Legia completely killed off Celtic’s hopes of a comeback after capitalising on more sloppy defending from Ronny Deila’s side.

This time Michal Kucharczyk got on the end of a delightful throughball from Miroslav Radovic before effortlessly rounding Forster and slotting the ball home.

Callum McGregor and Leigh Griffiths had late efforts for Celtic but were unable to trouble Kuciak as Celtic’s Champions League’s hopes ended with a 6-1 aggregate defeat, leaving them with only a Europa League play-off tie to look forward to.