Celtic snatch dramatic win
Massimo Donati was Celtic's Champions League hero as his injury time strike secured a 2-1 victory over Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday.
With the sides locked at 1-1, after the opener from Donetsk's Brazilian Brandao had been cancelled out by Celtic's Czech midfielder Jiri Jarosik, and the two minutes of added time almost up, the Italian pounced with a dramatic winner.
A draw would have left Shakhtar level on points with the Glasgow side but favourites to progress, due to their 2-0 victory at home giving them a better head-to-head record.
However, Celtic are now on nine points, three ahead of the Ukrainian side, ahead of their final Group D game away to AC Milan next month.
A shell-shocked Strachan praised his players' determination for battling to the vital victory.
The Celtic manager said: "Just when you think you've seen it all, you think about every scenario but you can never predict what's going to happen in football.
"We had a central midfielder at left-back, a centre-half at right-back and a 34-year-old defender coming on who has not played for four or five months.
"But we won the game with big hearts and to give a team like Shakhtar almost no chances in the second half was fantastic."
Shakhtar's Romanian manager Mircea Lucescu was stunned by the result and claimed it was sheer luck which handed Celtic victory.
He said: "We were the better team and deserved to win.
"I said to Gordon Strachan his side were lucky and he was angry but I don't understand why. I want to be lucky.
"Celtic couldn't have scored without us making mistakes but we made two and they scored twice.
"I can only hope Milan play a real game against Celtic next week and we'll try and beat Benfica."
In Ukraine Celtic had gifted Shakhtar an early lead and they repeated the crime with less than four minutes played in Glasgow.
A simple high ball through the middle should have been easily dealt with by centre-half John Kennedy.
Instead he fluffed his headed clearance which fell straight to Brandao and he gratefully fired the ball past Artur Boruc, despite the Polish goalkeeper managing to get a hand to the ball.
Things deteriorated further for Celtic when left-back Lee Naylor was stretchered off in the 16th minute, forcing midfielder Paul Hartley to move back to take his place and Donati coming on in the middle.
Kennedy's night went from bad to worse when he seemed to fall awkwardly under a challenge from Brandao in the 41st minute and had to be replaced by Steven Pressley - making his first appearance of the season.
Things were not going to plan for the home side but in the 45th minute Shakhtar committed a defensive howler of their own to gift them an equaliser.
Gary Caldwell's cross should not have caused any danger but central defenders Dmytro Chygrynskiy and Croatian Darijo Srna clashed going for the same ball.
Celtic's Czech international Jarosik latched on to the loose ball and from eight-yards lashed it high into the net.
In first half injury time Celtic should have scored a second but Jarosik somehow headed Aiden McGeady's cross wide from only a few yards out.
There were few goal scoring opportunities in the second half but with only seconds remaining Celtic scored a dramatic winner.
McGeady twisted and turned away from his marker on the right touchline before squaring for Donati 12-yards from goal and although the Italian did not strike the ball cleanly it bounced past the despairing dive of Pyatov and into the back of the net.
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