Radovic double has Legia Warsaw putting Celtic in a Champions League chokehold

The first legs to the third qualifying round of the 2014/15 Uefa Champions League kicked off on Wednesday night, with Celtic falling 4-1 to the Polish champions.

Miroslav Radovic, left, scored twice for Legia Warsaw on Wednesday in their win over Celtic in the Champions League third qualifying round. Leszek Szymanski / EPA / July 30, 2014

Miroslav Radovic scored twice to spark Polish champions Legia Warsaw into a 4-1 first-leg advantage over 10-man Celtic on Wednesday in the Champions League third qualifying round.

Callum McGregor had gifted Celtic an ideal start when he put the Scottish Premiership title-holders ahead on eight minutes, but the visitors’ lead was cancelled out almost immediately by Radovic.

The Serbian striker then netted his second of the evening on 36 minutes to put Legia ahead before things took a further turn for the worse for Celtic as Nigerian centre-half Efe Ambrose was dismissed for a professional foul just prior to half-time.

Two late goals from Michal Zyro and Jakub Kosecki ultimately consigned Celtic to a heavy defeat that could have been even worse had Legia captain Ivica Vrdoljak not missed a pair of second-half penalties.

Celtic manager Ronny Deila gave a debut to Norwegian forward Jo Inge Berget, who joined on loan from Cardiff on Monday, with Anthony Stokes named to the bench after shaking off a hamstring problem.

The evening started in fine fashion for the visitors as McGregor, who scored on his competitive debut a fortnight ago in Reykjavik, continued his fine start to his Celtic career when he drifted in from the right and hammered a 20-yard strike beyond Legia goalkeeper Dusan Kuciak after eight minutes.

Legia were back on level terms just moments later, though, as Radovic was put through by Michal Zyro with the Serbian’s shot finding a way past Fraser Forster.

Kris Commons netted a league-best 27 goals in the Scottish top flight last season and the midfielder nearly restored Celtic’s advantage as he sliced through the Legia defence before firing narrowly over.

But Legia then went ahead nine minutes before the interval as Michal Kucharczyk cushioned a header back across goal for Radovic to stab home from close range.

Home keeper Kuciak dived low to his right to keep out a McGregor effort and preserve the hosts’ lead with Celtic suffering another damaging blow a minute before the break with Ambrose shown a straight red after taking out Kucharczyk just outside the area.

Legia sought to exploit their one-man advantage after half-time with Forster forced to produce a superb block to deny Zyro just after the restart.

The hosts were then awarded a penalty after Charlie Mulgrew brought down Ondrej Duda but Celtic were handed a reprieve as the subsequent spot-kick was put wide by Vrdoljak.

Undeterred Legia continued to threaten and were duly rewarded on 84 minutes as Radovic fashioned himself space down the right before delivering a cross which was headed home by Zyro.

A disastrous night for the Scots in Warsaw then saw Mulgrew concede a second penalty after a tug on Jakub Kosecki.

Remarkably Vrdoljak again failed to convert from the spot with Forster guessing correctly and diving to his left to push away the effort.

But Celtic were punished for more slack defending a minute into injury time as Kosecki steered home a fourth to complete a stunning victory for the Polish champions and leave Celtic’s Champions League dreams hanging by a thread.

Elsewhere, Zenit Saint Petersburg slumped to a 1-0 defeat at AEL Limassol and Azerbaijan’s Qarabag pulled off an even bigger upset when they beat Red Bull Salzburg 2-1 despite finishing with nine men in the Champions League qualifiers on Wednesday.

Salzburg, who have blasted 11 goals in their opening two league matches of the season, found life much tougher in Baku where they fell behind to a Danilo Dias goal after two minutes and had Christian Schwegler sent off just after the half hour.

The numbers were evened up when Qarabag captain Admir Teli was dismissed just before halftime after being booked twice in as many minutes.

Salzburg dominated the second half, finally equalising with a superb strike by Spaniard Jonathan Soriano in the 77th minute before hitting the bar shortly afterwards.

But Qarabag’s chances of becoming the first Azeri team to reach the group stage were given an unexpected boost when Dias’s fellow Brazilian Reynaldo took advantage of slack defending to snatch an 88th minute winner. Reynaldo was dismissed one minute later for a wild challenge.

Zenit dominated their match in Cyprus, with Danny hitting the post in the first half, but Limassol won the game with their only real chance when Lukasz Gikiewicz headed in Luciano Bebe’s cross.

The Russians had midfielder Axel Witsel sent off soon after.

Kazakhstan’s FK Aktobe twice came from behind to draw 2-2 at home to former European champions Steaua Bucharest and APOEL Nicosia, trailing 2-0 at halftime, hit back to draw 2-2 at HJK Helsinki.

Bulgarian champions Ludogorets Razgrad were held to a 0-0 draw at home by their Serbian counterparts Partizan Belgrade while the Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk-FC Copenhagen and Standard Liege-Panathinaikos ties also ended goalless.

Croatian champions Dinamo Zagreb, attempting to reach the group stage for the fifth time, won 1-0 at Denmark’s Aalborg when Marcelo Brozovic scored in the 49th minute.

It was a disappointing result for Aalborg after enthusiasm over their domestic form had seen shares in the club jump as much as 280 per cent earlier in the day.

Damjan Bohar scored in the fifth minute of stoppage time as Maribor (Slovenia) beat Maccabi Tel Aviv (Israel) by the same score at home.

Besiktas won 2-1 at Feyenoord, the Dutch side clearly struggling after selling key players Stefan de Vrij, Bruno Martins Indi, Daryl Janmaat and Graziano Pelle.

Sebastien Corchia and Ryan Mendes scored in each half as Lille beat Grasshoppers 2-0 away.

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