Martin O’Neill's Return to Champions League After 22 Years
Martin O’Neill has been away from the Champions League touchline for 22 years. By this time next week, he could be walking back into it.
The last time he tasted the competition, Celtic were holding AC Milan to a goalless draw at Celtic Park in 2004. Some of the players who tore apart LASK in Tuesday’s play-off first leg weren’t even born then. That’s how long he has been out of this arena. That’s how long he has been waiting.
And yet, at 74, after a recent spell in hospital for what was described as a “small procedure”, O’Neill still stands at the centre of Celtic’s world. He missed a comfortable Premiership win at Kilmarnock while recovering, but he has lost none of his grip on this team or this club.
A manager from another era, still setting the tempo
O’Neill doesn’t run every drill or bark every instruction at Lennoxtown. That falls to Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham, the lieutenants trusted with the day-to-day grind. He chooses the direction. He makes the big calls. The rest falls in behind.
“Martin is a manager,” Scott Brown said on Sportsound, the emphasis obvious. Times have changed, tactics have evolved, data has flooded the game, yet O’Neill has adapted without losing himself.
Brown pointed to the calmness in his voice on radio or TV, that unshakeable self-assurance. You can picture the effect in the dressing room. In the stands. On a young squad that has suddenly found itself a step away from Europe’s elite.
He still oozes confidence. The kind that spreads.
LASK arrive in form – and leave stunned
LASK, champions of Austria and in fine domestic form, did not turn up in Glasgow to make up the numbers. They had chances in the east end, moments when Celtic’s back line had to hold firm.
But the game broke open with a strike of real quality. Benjamin Nygren took aim and ripped a shot into the top corner, a finish that sent Celtic Park surging to its feet and rattled the visitors.
The pressure grew. LASK wobbled. Celtic smelled blood.
Then came the second. Summer signing Camilo Duran met a cross with a volley of outrageous technique, a magnificent finish that screamed of a player utterly at home on a big stage. Two goals, both stunning, both delivered with a swagger that has become a hallmark of this side under O’Neill’s renewed watch.
After the break, Celtic didn’t just protect their lead. They hunted more. Nygren turned provider, squaring for Duran, and the Colombian forward thundered in his second of the night. A ruthless third. A statement.
LASK had come in confident. They left having been blown away by three goals that would grace any Champions League night.
O’Neill’s second act
O’Neill will not indulge in fantasy about the job being finished. He never has. The tie still has a second leg, and he has been quick to remind anyone who will listen that nothing is sealed yet.
But this is already another extraordinary chapter.
When Brendan Rodgers resigned last October, Celtic did not turn to the future. They went back to a legend. O’Neill stepped out of retirement, initially on a temporary basis, then across two interim spells that somehow ended with a league and cup double few had forecast.
He took a team in flux and turned it into a trophy machine again. It was not subtle. It was not quiet. It was vintage O’Neill.
Pat Nevin, speaking on Match of the Day, tried to put his finger on it. Sometimes, he said, it’s hard to see exactly what O’Neill does. But the effect is obvious: he moulds a side.
The best managers know which players fit together, which combinations unlock something more, how to pull every last drop out of a squad. O’Neill has always had that gift. Last season, Nevin said, the job he did was “out of this world”.
This summer, Celtic asked him to stay on permanently. He agreed. The old warrior signed up for another fight.
Whatever happens from here, O’Neill’s status at Celtic is beyond dispute. He is already a legend. But if this team turns a commanding first-leg win into a place in the Champions League group stage, and then carves out a run in Europe?
At 74, after two decades away from this stage, he might just rewrite his own legacy all over again.
