Martin O'Neill's Remarkable Return to Celtic

Martin O'Neill stood on the touchline on Tuesday night with the Champions League anthem humming in the distance like a memory. Twenty-two years since he last walked this road. By this time next week, he could be back on it for real.

Some of the players who delivered his latest European statement against LASK were not even born when his Celtic side held AC Milan to a goalless draw at Celtic Park in 2004. They grew up on clips and stories. Now they are living his next chapter.

O'Neill, 74, still calling the shots

He is 74 now. Earlier this month he was in hospital for what was described as a “small procedure”, forced to sit out a comfortable Scottish Premiership win at Kilmarnock while he recovered.

If that hinted at a man winding down, the evidence in Glasgow’s east end said something very different.

O'Neill remains the clear centre of gravity at Celtic. He sets the tone, makes the hard calls, shapes the direction. Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham handle the drills and the daily grind, but the big-picture thinking, the pressure moments, still belong to him.

“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 presence has underpinned a league and cup double no one really saw coming last season, and now a surge towards the Champions League proper.

LASK arrive in form, leave in pieces

LASK did not turn up as tourists. Austrian champions, in good rhythm, they carried a threat and showed it early. They carved out chances, asked questions, quietened the crowd for spells.

Then Celtic found a higher gear.

Benjamin Nygren lit the place up with a ruthless opener, crashing his finish into the top corner. One touch, one swing, and suddenly the tie tilted.

The noise had barely settled when Camilo Duran, a summer signing still learning the club, produced something even more spectacular. A volley, clean and vicious, flew in before half-time. Two-nil, and LASK were reeling.

The pressure finally broke them after the interval. Nygren turned provider, sliding the ball into Duran’s path. The Colombian did the rest, smashing in his second of the night and Celtic’s third. A playoff that had looked awkward on paper now felt close to decided on grass.

O’Neill, true to type, refused to declare the job done. No wild claims, no grandstanding. But this was another entry in a career that keeps finding new ways to surprise.

From retirement to revival

When Brendan Rodgers resigned last October, Celtic did not turn to the future. They turned to their past. O’Neill came out of retirement, initially for a short stint, then a second interim spell. Those stopgaps turned into a season that ended with an unlikely domestic double.

It should have been a farewell tour. Instead, it became a launchpad.

He agreed to stay on permanently in the summer, a decision that already looks inspired. The squad feels balanced, the ideas clear, the belief obvious. Players who barely knew his first Celtic reign now talk about him in the way a previous generation once did.

“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 next frontier. One more hurdle to clear in the play-off, one more step back into the competition that once defined his Celtic. The years have passed, the game has shifted, the faces around him have changed.

The question now is simple: how far can Martin O’Neill take them this time?