Martin O'Neill's Remarkable Return to Celtic and Champions League

Martin O'Neill stood on the touchline at Celtic Park on Tuesday night, 22 years removed from his last taste of Champions League football. By this time next week, he could be right back in it.

The span of his absence is written in the faces around him. Some of the players who tore into LASK in this play-off first leg were not even born when O'Neill’s Celtic held AC Milan to a goalless draw in the group stage in 2004. They grew up watching clips of that era. Now they’re trying to create the next one for him.

He is 74 now, fresh from a spell in hospital earlier this month after what the club described as a “small procedure”. He missed a comfortable Scottish Premiership win at Kilmarnock while he recovered. For many, that might have been a hint to slow down.

He has done the opposite.

O'Neill remains the central pillar of this Celtic side – the man whose decisions still shape the club’s direction, even if others now run the drills. Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham handle the daily training, but the authority in the building is unmistakable.

“Martin is a manager,” former Celtic midfielder Scott Brown said on Sportsound. No frills, no caveats. “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.”

On a night when Austrian champions LASK arrived in Glasgow’s east end in form and full of intent, that composure seeped into his team. LASK had their moments, their chances, their warnings to the home crowd. Then Celtic found another gear and blew them away.

The pressure finally told with a strike of real quality. Benjamin Nygren stepped up first, thundering the opener into the top corner, a finish that snapped the tension and lit up the stadium. It was the sort of goal that changes the mood of a tie in an instant.

From there, Celtic surged.

Summer signing Camilo Duran then produced the kind of moment supporters remember for years. Meeting a cross with perfect timing, the Colombian forward volleyed in a magnificent second before half-time, a pure, clean hit that underlined why the club moved for him.

LASK were reeling. Celtic did not let them breathe.

After the break, Duran struck again. Nygren turned provider this time, teeing him up for his second of the night, smashed home with conviction. Three goals, each with a touch of theatre. Three statements of intent.

O’Neill, of course, refused to get swept away. He knows this competition too well, knows what a second leg in Europe can do to even the most commanding of scorelines. His message was clear: the job is not done.

Yet this feels like another remarkable page in a career that keeps finding new chapters.

When Brendan Rodgers resigned last October, Celtic did not turn to the next big thing. They went back to a legend who had already stepped away from frontline management. O’Neill came out of retirement, first for one interim spell, then a second. Those stints ended not with a gentle handover but with a league and cup double that few saw coming.

That was supposed to be the epilogue. Instead, it became the prelude.

Earlier this summer, he agreed to stay on permanently. The gamble has already paid off domestically; now Europe is calling 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.”

Legend status is secure. That much is settled.

What remains to be written is whether this 74-year-old, back from hospital and back on the European stage, can guide Celtic into another Champions League campaign – and how far this unlikely second act can really go.