Martin O'Neill's Celtic: A Return to Champions League Glory
Martin O’Neill stood on the touchline on Tuesday night with the Champions League anthem back within earshot. Twenty-two years after he last prowled a technical area in Europe’s elite competition, he is now one game away from returning to it.
Some of the players who delivered this 3-0 dismantling of LASK were not even born when O’Neill’s Celtic drew 0-0 with AC Milan at Celtic Park in 2004. They will know the clip: a packed stadium, a snarling, relentless Celtic side, a coach in his prime. On this evidence, the man in charge has lost none of his edge.
He is 74 now. Earlier this month he was in hospital for what the club described as a “small procedure”, forced to miss a comfortable Scottish Premiership win at Kilmarnock while he recovered. For many managers, that sort of episode would be the cue to step back. O’Neill has done the opposite.
He remains the unmistakable centre of gravity at Celtic. The architect of last season’s title and cup double. The voice everyone still listens for. Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham run the training-ground drills, but the big calls – selection, shape, game plan, tone – still come from O’Neill.
“Martin is a manager,” Scott Brown said on Sportsound, the emphasis obvious. “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.”
LASK arrived in Glasgow’s east end as Austrian champions and in sharp form. They carried a threat, too, carving out chances that on another night might have changed the mood. Instead, they ran into a Celtic side that punished every lapse with ruthless, spectacular precision.
The first blow came from Benjamin Nygren, who arrowed a fierce strike into the top corner to ignite the stadium. It was a finish of real conviction, the sort that tells opponents they are in trouble.
The pressure only grew. Before half-time, summer signing Camilo Duran produced the moment of the match, meeting a cross with a volley of stunning technique to make it 2-0. One swing, no hesitation, and the tie began to tilt heavily towards Celtic.
LASK tried to regroup after the break, pushing higher, committing bodies forward. The response was brutal. Nygren slipped Duran through again and the Colombian forward thrashed in his second of the night, a ruthless third that left the visitors reeling and the play-off hanging by a thread.
O’Neill did not indulge in any victory laps afterwards. He rarely does. The job, he reminded everyone, is not finished. There is still a second leg, still work to do, still pitfalls to avoid. But even he will know this was another extraordinary chapter in a comeback few saw coming.
When Brendan Rodgers resigned last October, Celtic turned to O’Neill as a short-term fix, a steadying hand for a turbulent moment. He came out of retirement, took charge across two interim spells and somehow turned a fractured season into a league and cup double that stunned even his admirers.
That was supposed to be the epilogue. Instead, he signed on permanently in the summer and started building again.
“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.”
A legend already, then. But as the Champions League looms back into view and another generation of Celtic players lines up behind him, the more intriguing question is this: how much more can he still add to that legacy?
