Larsson equals scoring record as Celtic ease past Kaunas

Henrik Larsson scored a British record-equalling 30th European goal for Celtic as the Scottish giants enjoyed a comfortable 4-0 win over Lithuanian champions FBK Kaunas in their opening Champions League match.

The Swedish international striker now stands alongside Peter Lorimer, of Leeds, and Liverpool's Ian Rush in equalling the continental goal-scoring record.

Chris Sutton, and substitutes Shaun Maloney and Liam Miller scored the other goals that makes the outcome of next week's return leg of this second qualifying round tie virtually academic.

But the match was played in tragic circumstances after Kaunas' 28-year-old top-scorer Audrius Slekys had been killed in a car crash on Sunday evening.

A minute's silence was held for him, but without his scoring prowess they were always destined to struggle and it took just 13 minutes for Martin O'Neill's men to take the lead when Stanislav Varga released Larsson who scored from 10 yards.

Former England international striker Sutton made it 2-0 after half an hour as his shot from the edge of the box took a deflection past Gytis Padimanskas in the Kaunas goal.

Maloney replaced Neil Lennon at half-time and eight minutes later the youngster was on the scoresheet when he found the target from Larsson's pass.

Miller then replaced Sutton and he made it 4-0 after 86 minutes when he made no mistake from close range from Maloney's pass.

The only setback for Celtic came 15 minutes from the final whistle when Larsson was forced to limp off with a leg injury.

Celtic will face either MTK Hungaria or HJK Helsinki in the final qualifying round where the reward will be a place in the lucrative group stage of the competition.

But O'Neill will not be looking that far ahead - last season, they lost to FC Basel in the final qualifying round and went into the UEFA Cup instead where they ended up losing in the final to Porto.