Shakhtar must now hope they win at home to Benfica on their last outing and that Milan beat Celtic, as the Ukrainians, having won their home game against Strachan's side 2-0 on Matchday 1, would touch off the Glasgow side on the head-to-head results, the first criterion for separation in the event of a tie on points.

"I hope Milan play a proper game," said Lucescu, hinting that the Italians, already qualified with 10 points, may not take the event seriously. "But I am very upset at tonight's result, because Celtic are a very lucky team. We played better and deserved to win the match.

"For 43 minutes tonight, Celtic had not a shot at goal and after the equaliser they had only two shots on goal and scored with one. Yes, we made a mistake at the winning goal, because some of our players thought the match was over. But Celtic could only have scored through us making a mistake."