Martin O'Neill's Remarkable Return to Champions League with Celtic
Martin O'Neill stood on the touchline at Celtic Park on Tuesday night, staring at a competition he has not tasted for 22 years – and suddenly the Champions League no longer feels like a distant memory, but an appointment waiting in his diary.
Back then, in 2004, his Celtic side were slugging it out with AC Milan in a goalless group-stage draw under the lights. Some of the players who ripped into LASK in this play-off first leg were not even born. The game has changed, the faces have changed, the tempo has changed. O’Neill, somehow, has not.
The old master, still calling the shots
He is 74 now. Earlier this month, he was in hospital for what the club described as a “small procedure”, missing a comfortable Scottish Premiership win at Kilmarnock while he recovered.
You would not have known it from the authority he exuded here.
O’Neill remains the central pillar at Celtic. He sets the tone, makes the big calls, and leaves the grind of daily drills to his assistants Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham. The structure is modern, the leadership unmistakably old school.
“Martin is a manager,” Scott Brown said on Sportsound, leaning on that word as if it still means something special. “The times have changed but it is amazing that he has moved with them.
“See the calmness when he talks on radio or TV – he just oozes confidence. You can imagine what he does to fans, to us, to players, he oozes that confidence and that calmness as well.”
That calm has seeped into this team. It showed when the pressure came.
LASK arrive in form – and get blown away
The Austrian champions did not come to Glasgow as tourists. LASK arrived in good form, carrying a threat and making that clear in the east end of the city. They carved out chances, asked questions, forced Celtic to defend properly.
Then Celtic started answering in the most ruthless way.
Benjamin Nygren lit the place up first, cutting across the ball and sending a vicious strike into the top corner. One swing, one roar, and the tie suddenly tilted.
The second was even better. Summer signing Camilo Duran, the Colombian forward already hinting at cult-hero potential, met a cross with a stunning volley before half-time. Technique, timing, audacity – all in one movement.
LASK were still alive, still pushing, but the game had shifted. The pressure finally told again after the break.
Nygren turned provider, slipping the ball across for Duran, who thundered in his second of the night. Three goals, each of them a statement. Three goals that leave Celtic with one foot in the group stage, and O’Neill on the brink of a competition that once defined him.
A manager who still shapes teams
O’Neill did not indulge in any wild celebrations. He rarely does. He has been around long enough to know that a play-off is a two-legged trap for the complacent, and he was quick to remind everyone that the job is not done.
Yet this is another remarkable chapter in a career that looked closed not long ago.
When Brendan Rodgers resigned last October, Celtic turned to O’Neill as a stop-gap, a steadying hand for an uncertain moment. He came out of retirement, took charge across two interim spells, and somehow turned the season into a league and cup double that few saw coming.
That would have been a perfect ending. Instead, he signed on permanently in the summer.
“Sometimes it’s hard to see what Martin does for the team, but he seems to be able to mould a side,” former Scotland winger Pat Nevin said on Match of the Day. “The great managers do that. It’s understanding what players work with other types of players and getting the best out of them.
“The job he did last season was out of this world. Whatever happens, he will always be a legend of the club, but if they have a good run in Europe, that’s fantastic.”
This, now, is the next test. One more controlled performance away from home and Celtic are back in the Champions League, with a 74-year-old at the helm who refuses to be a relic.
The modern game keeps racing forward. O’Neill, against every expectation, is still keeping pace – and dragging Celtic with him towards Europe’s biggest stage once again.
