KO WAS NOT IN THE SCRIPT
were too wily. Boss Solbakken had sent his team out with the type of positivity they had lacked at home, when Celtic could so easily have had the tie won.
Police Scotland were, apart from a few travelling Danes, probably the only ones in the city who could feel some satisfaction at this result.
The spectre of the Old Firm meeting in the last 16 of the Europa League had been removed in the type of uncompromising style normally reserved for a drunk being bundled into the back of a meat wagon on a Saturday night.
To be fair, Lennon’s troops looked punch drunk when they walked off.
No wonder. They’d been slapped a sore one.
It just didn’t happen, it just didn’t work.
Lennon made a big call in his line up. While most expected Leigh Griffiths to start, the manager went for Mohamed Elyounoussi off the left and Tom Rogic in midfield.
It didn’t work for him. Rogic is a Rolls Royce of a footballer, but with only 24 minutes of Euro football under his belt this term, the gears were rusty.
Elyounoussi was decent and did better, but it wasn’t enough.
The Danes, despite having some neat passages of play before the interval, were solid and compact.
The gaps which Edouard was able to gallop into in the Danish capital a week previously, were closed off during the opening period.
At half-time, this was classic stick or twist stuff for Celtic.
Lennon must have been tempted to switch things around to offer a bit more protection at the back and get Griffiths on to help Edouard.
If it was a group game, he might well have done so, but in the knockout situation with progression in their hands, it was a tricky call to make.
Within a matter of minutes of the restart, he must have wished he’d gone down that route because the Simunovic blunder was a horror moment.
What’s worse is that you could see it coming.
It’s hard to imagine it had been 16 years since Celtic had won a knockout tie after Christmas in Europe when they got the better of Barcelona over two legs in the UEFA Cup.
Lennon was playing in the middle of the park against Xavi that night and assistant manager John Kennedy was at centre-half in the Nou Camp as the clean sheet was snared to progress to the last eight. Big Kendo must have wished he was in the boots of Simunovic to deal with it as the nightmare unfolded.
In truth, Celtic should have had the tie won after just 15 minutes in freezing Denmark seven days previously.
Edouard had already missed a couple of cracking chances before he got the vital away goal which had put the Hoops in complete control of this last-32 tie.
The Scottish champs could have been out of sight then and, although the French striker’s bottle to dink the VAR-awarded penalty was brilliant to level last night, his pals at the back could not keep the same clear heads.
It’s seven years since Celtic reached the last 16 in Europe – and it felt that long watching the second half go so horribly wrong last night.