Martin O'Neill's Return to Champions League Management
Twenty-two years since he last prowled a Champions League touchline, Martin O'Neill stands on the brink again. By this time next week, the 74-year-old could be plotting group-stage nights instead of reminiscing about them.
Some of the players who delivered his latest European statement on Tuesday weren’t even born when his Celtic side fought out a goalless draw with AC Milan at Celtic Park in 2004. They grew up on clips and stories. Now they’re helping write the sequel.
O'Neill, still the heartbeat
Earlier this month, O'Neill was in hospital for what was described as a “small procedure”. He missed a convincing Scottish Premiership win at Kilmarnock while he recovered, a reminder of the years that have passed since his first great Celtic era.
Yet watch this Celtic side and the age melts away. He remains the figurehead, the authority, the man everyone looks towards when the stakes rise. The structure is clear: O'Neill makes the big calls, shapes the strategy, sets the tone. Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham run the training ground, but the direction of travel is unmistakably his.
“Martin is a manager,” former Celtic midfielder Scott Brown said on Sportsound. “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 now underpins a team that suddenly looks comfortable under the brightest lights again.
LASK arrive in form, leave shell-shocked
Austrian champions LASK did not travel to Glasgow to play the part of nostalgic extras. They arrived in form, with enough attacking threat to unsettle Celtic in the east end. They created chances. For spells, they pushed Celtic back.
Then the game flipped.
Benjamin Nygren ignited the night, thundering the opener into the top corner and ripping the tension out of Celtic Park in a single strike. It was the kind of goal that changes a tie, not just a scoreline.
The pressure grew. The noise followed. LASK wobbled.
Summer signing Camilo Duran then produced the moment that will live longest in the highlights. Meeting a cross with perfect timing, the Colombian volleyed in a magnificent second before half-time, a finish dripping with confidence and technique.
Celtic smelled blood after the interval. LASK tried to steady themselves, but the home side kept coming. When Nygren teed up Duran again, the forward did not hesitate, smashing in his second of the night to all but bury the Austrians’ hopes.
Three goals, each emphatic in its own way. Three statements from a team that suddenly looks far more than a domestic force.
A manager moulding another contender
O’Neill will not indulge talk of jobs done or ties finished. He has seen too much, lived too many European nights, to fall for that. His message after the win was clear: there is still work to do.
Yet this feels like another remarkable chapter in a career that refused to end quietly.
When Brendan Rodgers resigned last October, few expected O’Neill to step out of retirement, never mind twice. Two interim spells later, Celtic had an unlikely league and cup double, and a fanbase reconnected with one of its defining figures.
This summer, he agreed to stay on permanently. The gamble, if it ever was one, looks inspired.
“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.”
That is the stage now looming into view. One more step, and Martin O’Neill will walk back into the Champions League at 74, not as a relic of a different era, but as the architect of Celtic’s newest one.
