Five minutes was all it took. Dane Murray caught Jhon Duran inside the box at the Estadio da Luz, the referee pointed to the spot, and by the interval Celtic were three down and being walked through at will. Benfica won 4-1 on Thursday night, and the scoreline flattered the visitors.
Duran punishes Celtic twice before the break
Duran, who spent the early part of his career making his name at Aston Villa, dusted himself off after Murray's foul and dinked the penalty past Viljami Sinisalo. Alexander Bah doubled it on 23 minutes when Sebastian Tounekti failed to track the Denmark full-back's run into the area, and Bah picked out the bottom corner from Gianluca Prestianni's pass. It should have been three straight from the restart, but Duran dragged his shot into the side netting. Celtic did not take the hint. Minutes later Prestianni played the Colombian in again and he beat Sinisalo from a tight angle.
Benfica finished the night with 26 attempts at goal. Twenty-one of those came from inside the Celtic penalty area. That is not a side riding its luck. That is a side walking through a door nobody bothered to close.
O'Neill's changes shift the mood but not the match
Martin O'Neill withdrew Kasper Hogh and Tounekti at half-time. Hogh, the club-record signing, has now gone without a goal in 10 of his first 11 Celtic appearances, which is the sort of statistic that follows a forward around. Haissem Hassan and Callum Osmand came on and Celtic briefly resembled a functioning team. Hassan shot straight at Anatoliy Trubin, then set up Camilo Duran for a brave header on 63 minutes, and the Celtic striker later clipped a post with his left foot. Osmand forced another save from Trubin.
None of it mattered. Andreas Schjelderup rattled the woodwork at the other end and substitute Vangelis Pavlidis scuffed a fourth past a flat-footed Sinisalo in the closing minutes, which was roughly what Marco Silva's hosts deserved.
Two games, two defeats, and a table that reads badly
O'Neill refused to treat the night as a write-off. "Last thing you want to do is concede so early on," he said. "We could've capitulated, but I thought the second-half performance was terrific. We created chance after chance. I think we can still qualify. We can still do it." He was happier about the wide players who came on and took the game to Benfica, though he conceded that the counter-attacks they left behind produced the fourth goal.
The arithmetic is less forgiving than the manager. Benfica sit third in the league phase with two wins from two. Celtic are 34th of 36 after two defeats, and that is before you count the two derby losses to Rangers and the home defeat by Ferencvaros that preceded the international break. A win at Motherwell on Sunday had suggested the worst was behind them. It was not.
Hearts visit Celtic Park on Sunday, which is a serious test in its own right, and Celta Vigo are next in Europe. Nobody expected Celtic to win in Lisbon. Competing for longer than five minutes was a reasonable ask.
Match facts: Benfica 4-1 Celtic, Europa League league phase, Estadio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica, Thursday 15 October 2026. Scorers: Jhon Duran 5 (pen), Alexander Bah 23, Jhon Duran 36, Vangelis Pavlidis 89; Camilo Duran 63. Assists: Prestianni (2), Tomas Araujo; Haissem Hassan. Half-time 3-0. Player of the match: Jhon Duran (8.53).
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