‘Rome Conquered’: Celtic beat Lazio 2-1 in their first ever competitive win in Italy.

By Callum Faulds

A late chip from Olivier Ntcham saw Celtic earn a famous win in Italy and a place in the last 32 of the Europa League with two games still to play.

The Italians started strongly and piled on the pressure early on. Just before the 7^th minute, Lazio’s top marksman, Ciro Immobile, latched onto a poorly cleared cross and slotted the ball home with one touch.

Lazio continued to pressure Celtic but failed to see any end product.

Eventually Celtic found their feet and began to take the game back to Lazio. In the 37^th minute Mohamed Elyounoussi robbed Sergej Milinković-Savić of possession and put in James Forrest with a terrific pass after which the Scotsman fired home with a powerful strike across goal to draw the game level.

Before the break Lazio had more good chances including a spell in the 40^th minute where they had about three chances in just over a minute, one of which forced a goal-line clearance from Christopher Jullien.

The second half saw more good chances for both sides but both teams failed to make them count for the most part.

It looked as though Celtic had done enough to earn themselves a point come stoppage time but little did they know that Lazio would throw it all away chasing the three points.

In the 3^rd minute of stoppage time second half substitute Valon Berisha played a woeful pass in the direction of Odsonne Edouard with the intention of finding teammate Luiz Felipe.

Edouard caught onto the mistake of the midfielder and began running towards goal with the support of Elyounoussi and second half substitute Olivier Ntcham.

Celtic outnumbered Lazio three to two which allowed Ntcham to break through unmarked and receive a well-placed pass from Edouard.

After a poor touch the chance looked as though it was potentially gone but Ntcham quickly composed himself and chipped the ball over Thomas Strakosha with a finish strikingly similar to that of Henrik Larsson against Blackburn in 2003.

And with that the game was over and Celtic made history, winning their first ever competitive game against an Italian team in Italy.