Martin O’Neill has fingers crossed Camilo Duran will be available for Celtic

Martin O’Neill hopes Camilo Duran will be available for Celtic’s Europa League clash with Benfica on Thursday after the talismanic forward missed the flight to Lisbon due to the impending birth of his child.

The Colombian was absent from the Hoops squad that trained at Celtic Park on Wednesday before travelling to Portugal later in the day.

“Camilo is hoping to be out here later on,” said manager O’Neill, speaking at Estadio da Luz on Wednesday night. “His partner’s having a baby and obviously he wanted to be there at the birth.

“If everything goes alright without complications then he’ll come out.”

O’Neill confirmed that Cameron Carter-Vickers remains sidelined by a hamstring strain for a match in which Celtic are big underdogs.

While the Hoops began their campaign with a 3-1 defeat at home to Ferencvaros, Benfica were beating AC Milan 2-0 in the San Siro.

“They’ll be disappointed that they’re not in the Champions League, and they would be one of the favourites to win this competition,” said O’Neill, buoyed by Celtic’s display in their 2-0 win at Motherwell on Sunday.

“It’ll be a really big test for us but it’s one that we want to experience. We’re ready to go.

“On Sunday I thought we’d played some really fantastic football. Of course this is a different team, different atmosphere, different stadium, different everything, so it’ll be a tough game, but we’re really looking forward to it.”

Benfica have already defeated Scottish opposition this term after a 7-2 aggregate triumph over Hearts in the third qualifying round.

The Portuguese side have won nine of their last ten matches since drawing 1-1 away to the Jambos in the second leg two months ago.

“They’ll have gained a great deal of confidence from starting off the competition by winning in Milan,” said O’Neill. “That’s not easy.

“They played very well here against Hearts. But I don’t think that I can take too much from that. All it proved was how good a side Benfica are.

“But if we show the capabilities that we definitely can do, then I think we can cause problems.”

O’Neill – who said it was “really lovely” to be leading Celtic in Lisbon, where the club won the European Cup in 1967 – is confident his side can handle the dual demands of competing in the Europa League and trying to retain their William Hill Premiership title.

“The Premiership is very, very important for us, obviously. But while we’re here, our ambition is to try and qualify for the knockout stages of the competition,” he said.

“We’ve got some time in which to do it, but obviously we didn’t get off to a great start. The players are looking forward to the games, they want to play, they want to contest European football.

“Last season, we had four games in about 10 days, and it was really hectic and really took its toll. But we think we’re equipped for it. We think that we’re ready to go and we want to compete.”