Celtic’s unbeaten start to the season came to a shuddering halt as they were taught a Champions League lesson by a rampant Borussia Dortmund inspired by the electric Karim Adeyemi.
Daizen Maeda cancelled out Emre Can’s early penalty in a frantic start, but it proved to be the briefest of respites for the Scottish champions.
Adeyemi ran riot with a lethal hat-trick, with another spot-kick from Serhou Guirassy helping the home side to a 5-1 half-time lead.
Guirassy struck again after the break and Felix Nmecha completed the rout with the seventh goal.
The victory sets Dortmund up to take on Real Madrid next in a rerun of last season’s final, while Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic will have to improve drastically when they head to Italy to take on Atalanta in two weeks
Celtic made the worst possible start, conceding a penalty when Jamie Gittens showed rapid pace to slalom through and lull Kasper Schmeichel into bringing him down in the box. Can coolly converted from the spot.
The response was swift. Arne Engels delivered a beauty of a cross from wide on the right that Maeda bundled in from close range.
If that equaliser was meant to settle down the Scottish champions, they barely had time to draw breath before Dortmund struck again.
The speed of Adeyemi was frightening the life out of the Celtic defence and he raced clear to fire past Schmeichel with the aid of a deflection off Auston Trusty.
The 22-year-old German international produced a moment of magic for Dortmund’s third, firing a rocket high into the net from the edge of the box to make it 3-1.
Celtic players looked unable to catch a breath and things started to really unravel when Engels caught Adeyemi and Guirassy buried the penalty to make it four.
The Yellow Wall was rocking now and Adeyemi had his hat-trick before half-time, firing in another fabulous long-range strike to beat Schmeichel’s despairing dive.
Celtic managed to stop the bleeding for the first 20 minutes of the second half, but Guirassy punished a Alistair Johnson mistake to bury his second and Dortmund’s sixth.
A wretched night was summed up for Celtic when substitute Adam Idah was unable to head into an empty net and Nmecha smashed in Dortmund’s seventh at the other end moments later to bring the curtain down on their humiliation.
