Ferencvaros shock Celtic 3-1 as Juventus thrash NEC and Besiktas rout Marseille

Celtic were beaten 3-1 at Celtic Park by Ferencvaros in the Europa League on 17 September 2026, while Juventus defeated NEC Nijmegen 5-0 at home and Besiktas routed Marseille 4-1 as the first round of Europa League matches concluded.

Celtic entered the match amid a period of turmoil having crashed out of the Champions League qualifiers to Austrian side Lask, despite at one point holding a four-goal lead, and suffering a chastening 3-0 loss to rivals Rangers the previous weekend; the team failed to produce the response manager Martin O’Neill had promised.

Ferencvaros took the lead through Bamidele Yusuf before Mika Baur levelled late in the first half; Kristoffer Zachariassen restored the visitors’ advantage quickly after the interval and Daniel Arzani struck a sensational goal, on his return to Celtic Park, to complete Ferencvaros’s scoring.

“We’re naturally disappointed getting beaten,” said O’Neill. “We started off very brightly. We had a number of balls that were flashed across the goal and no one there to put the ball in the net for us. “Their first proper attempt, really, on goal yielded a goal for them. We came back into the game, got the equaliser just before half-time and then conceded a really poor goal. We’re hit on the break for the third goal. While we had a number of balls flashed across the box, even in the last 20 minutes, we didn’t get there to the front post a number of times that could’ve kept it alive and we’re beaten in the game.”

Juventus’s 5-0 win over NEC was aided by two errors from goalkeeper Nikolas Polster; Nicolás González profited in the ninth minute when he nipped in ahead of Polster to steal the ball and open the scoring, Kerim Alajbegovic and a penalty from Nick Woltemade made it 3-0 at the interval, Zeki Celik added a fourth in the 75th minute and Randal Kolo Muani rolled into an empty net after Polster again failed to clear.

Marseille’s troubled start continued as Besiktas beat them 4-1 in Turkey, with the hosts scoring three unanswered goals in the second half, and elsewhere OFI Crete beat Hoffenheim 2-0 at home while RB Salzburg claimed a 1-0 victory away to Levski Sofia in Bulgaria.

“It’s a huge frustration, obviously, but it’s also psychologically quite damning as well. It’s not the start we wanted. We have seven games in which to try and get some points on the board. Really need to concentrate now on Sunday [against Rangers]. “Tonight was, I think, a European lesson for us in many aspects. We’ll get ourselves together. We need to re-energise ourselves as much as anything else.”