Celtic slayers snap agonising 1826-day losing streak in major Champions League shock

Having qualified for the competition by downing Celtic in the Champions League qualifiers two months ago, LASK secured their first-ever victory in the competition with a shock 3-2 comeback victory over Sporting CP in Portugal on Wednesday night,

Trailing 3-0 going into the second leg of the qualifiers in August, the Austrian outfit pulled off a remarkable 5-1 comeback victory against Celtic at the Raiffeisen Arena to seal a place in the Champions League for the first time in their history back in August, and now have their first three points in the competition after staging another remarkable comeback at the Estadio Jose Alvalade in Portugal.

Entering the game on the back of eight consecutive away defeats in European competition, LASK’s Champions League campaign had started with back-to-back defeats to AEK Athens and Liverpool, and it looked set to continue when Luis Suarez opened the scoring from the penalty spot after just five minutes for Sporting CP.

PASK's Tobias Schutzenauer and Andres Andrade Cedeno celebrate their victory over Sporting CP on Wednesday night. | AFP via Getty Images

However, the visitors hit back quickly, cancelling out Sporting CP’s opener when Christoph Lang’s shot from the edge of the area escaped Kaique Pereira’s reach and nestled into the bottom right-hand corner of the net.

The goal helped Dietmar Kuhbauer’s side head into half-time with the scores level, but they exploded into life after the break, and found themselves in front through Sasa Kalajdzic on 63 minutes.

Driven forward by Robert Ljubicic on the break, the Austrian midfielder fed the ex-Wolverhampton Wanderers striker in the area, and he made no mistake by placing it into the corner of the net. LASK repeated the trick just four minutes later, as Krystof Danek hammered home off the post after another quick break.

Sporting CP pulled by back in the closing stages of the game when Chelsea loanee Jeese Derry set up Suarez for his second of the game. However, it was not enough as LASK picked up their first European away win since a 3-0 Europa Conference League group stage win over Armenian club Alashkert exactly five years ago.

“Sporting hadn't lost a game in this season's Champions League until now,” said Kuhbauer. “I have to give my team incredible praise. That was one of our best performances. You could see that the lads really believed in themselves when it was 1-1. With the 2-1 and 3-1 goals, we completely threw them off balance.”