Celtic bow out of Europa League despite victory over Stuttgart

A much-changed Celtic team restored some pride with a 1-0 victory in Stuttgart as they exited the Europa League.

Luke McCowan stunned the hosts by netting inside 30 seconds but Celtic could not make further inroads into their three-goal first-leg deficit in the knockout round play-offs.

The win at least earned some much-needed coefficient and ranking points and gave Martin O’Neill’s side a lift following consecutive home defeats by Stuttgart and Hibernian.

Celtic will quickly put their 4-2 aggregate defeat behind them as they prepare to face Rangers on Sunday in the second of four successive away matches.

It was Celtic’s first away victory in a European knockout game – excluding qualifiers – since Henrik Larsson sent O’Neill’s side into the UEFA Cup final with a late winner against Boavista 23 years ago.

They have not actually progressed in a knockout tie in the latter stages since beating Barcelona the following year.

Their hopes of ending that long wait were all but extinguished in Glasgow last week and the Celtic manager made eight changes following Sunday’s defeat by Hibs.

The only players to keep their place were captain Callum McGregor, Yang Hyun-jun and Auston Trusty, who begins a three-match league ban at the weekend.

If Stuttgart thought the team selection signalled that their visitors had given up hope of progressing, they were in for a rude awakening.

Junior Adamu fed McCowan’s forward run and the former Dundee midfielder slotted into the far corner after just 28 seconds.

Celtic had some pressure from corners which came to nothing before Stuttgart began to test Viljami Sinisalo, the Finnish goalkeeper making a comfortable save before producing an excellent diving stop to palm away a long-range effort.

Yang then tracked back to take the ball of Jamie Leweling’s feet and McGregor made an important block as Celtic repelled the pressure.

The visitors had a chance to double their lead before the break when the home goalkeeper dropped McCowan’s corner, but Daizen Maeda hit the loose ball over.

Goalkeeper Alexander Nubel was handed a generous free-kick which might have been overturned if Maeda had netted.

The home side almost scored an even faster goal than McCowan at the start of the second half when half-time substitute Chris Fuhrich made an instant impact with a run to the bye-line past two Celtic players but Marcelo Saracchi produced a vital block to save a goal.

The second half was fairly even without a string of major incidents, although Sinisalo pulled off another impressive parried stop.

Stuttgart thought they had levelled on the night in controversial circumstances in the 75th minute.

Bosnian striker Ermedin Demirovic was allowed back on the field by the fourth official just in time to run on to a through ball that got him behind the Celtic defence before he cut the ball back for Deniz Undav to finish.

Celtic were furious about the fourth official’s intervention and VAR rescued his blushes as the Bosnian was ruled just offside and the goal disallowed.

The visitors had chances to set up a grandstand finish as Maeda was denied by an excellent last-ditch tackle after running on to a ball over the top and sub Sebastian Tounekti had a shot saved on the break.

But the home side largely played out the final stages in the Celtic half and the visiting fans were just happy to celebrate a win.