It took just seven minutes for the Slovenian champions to break the deadlock on Wednesday night through Aljoša Matko. Within three minutes Celje had doubled their advantage thanks to center-half Damir Vukicevic.

As far as starts go, things could hardly have been worse for Flora. Their blushes were spared slightly on 21 minutes however, when Matko failed to convert a penalty for the visitors.

But while it has often been said that 2-0 is the most dangerous scoreline in football, Matko's misfire proved to be only a temporary reprieve for the Estonian champions. Celje's domination continued to pay off and Slovenian international defender Mark Zabukovnik pounced in first half injury time to give his side a three goal lead and put the tie well beyond Flora.

The Slovenians made sure of the result by adding two more goals to their tally in the second half. Jamaican forward Rolando Aarons came off the bench to score a fourth in the 71st minute before Tamar Svetelin completed the rout with a fifth right at the death.

After the game, Flora midfielder Markus Soomets said that his side were a long way from having the world class basics required to succeed at this level. "We took ourselves out of the game in the first ten minutes. In fact, even the basics of football such as defending the box were missing," he said,

"It's very disappointing. We've been looking forward to this game for a very long time. We were focused, we were prepared for this game. We still have a match to play, but our opponents have has already taken it away from us in this first leg with such a big win. It's hard to accept," the midfielder added.

Soomets added that it is also difficult for Flora to take away any positives from the performance. "There are a lot of lessons to be learned. There's enough quality in Europe to punish you immediately."

Flora now face the prospect of a second leg away in Slovenia on Tuesday, with little hope of progressing further in this season's Champions League.

Should they fail to overturn the five-goal deficit, they will drop into the UEFA Conference League, where their opponents will, in all likelihood, be AC Virtus of San Marino. The Sammarinese went down 1-7 in the first leg of their Champions League first qualifying round tie at home to Romanians FCSB on Tuesday.

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