Celtic's Champions League Dreams Shattered Again
Six attempts in eight years. Six failures. Another Celtic Champions League dream left in pieces.
Picking through the wreckage of a European exit has become an almost annual ritual for the Scottish champions, but this one cuts deeper. This one feels different.
They led 3-0 from the first leg in Glasgow. They went 1-0 up in Linz. Three quarters of the way through the tie, they still held a three-goal cushion. Then the floor gave way.
LASK spent the second half turning the screw. Celtic retreated, lost their shape, lost their nerve. The equaliser to make it 4-4 on aggregate arrived in the 90th minute, but the sense of inevitability had been building long before the ball hit the net. The Austrians’ fifth – the winner – felt like the natural conclusion to a collapse everyone inside the stadium could see coming.
Only a week earlier, Martin O'Neill’s side had opened the season with four wins from four, rattling in 13 goals. Optimism flowed. Now the questions are piling up just as quickly.
'Scared' and 'passive'
Captain Callum McGregor did not dress it up. He said Celtic looked "scared" and were "passive" as LASK launched wave after wave of attacks in that chaotic second half in Linz.
The evidence was brutal. Benjamin Nygren, Auston Trusty and Luke McCowan all made errors that directly led to goals. The midfield barely laid a glove on LASK as the game ran away from them. Celtic did not just lose control; they surrendered it.
O'Neill fronted up and took the blame, but former captain Scott Brown was adamant the manager was shielding his players.
"I feel for Martin because he's taking full responsibility," Brown told BBC Scotland. "I've been in Martin's situation. When you get humiliated in a game, you need to take that pressure off the players because in a week's time they've got another game."
By full-time, Celtic’s back line looked like something cobbled together on a pre-season tour, not a Champions League qualifier. Third-choice right-back Anthony Ralston. Trusty, who had not trained in the build-up because of illness. Academy graduate Dane Murray, thrown into a storm. Liam Scales shunted out of position at left-back.
Brown did not hide his view: the depth is not close to Champions League level.
"The substitutes aren't Martin's players," he said. "The strength and depth in areas still needs a little bit of quality because the players that came on didn't hit the same level as the ones that went off."
Recruitment, sales and a glaring hole
Celtic have not been inactive in the market. Forwards Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran arrived for significant fees this summer, with midfielder Mika Baur and winger Haissem Hassan also added.
But the outgoings cut to the core of O'Neill’s team. Daizen Maeda and Arne Engels, both key figures, were sold to Ipswich Town and West Ham United respectively before this defining tie.
Former striker Chris Sutton questioned on social media why such influential players were allowed to leave before a match of this magnitude. Brown, looking at the mess in midfield in Linz, pointed to Engels’ absence as a decisive factor.
"What they're missing is probably another physical centre-midfielder that can be alongside [McGregor] in there to help him out," he said.
"Because Arne Engels is a huge miss physically, not just for the battle, but his legs and running power as well, getting in behind, but his mentality as well."
The hole he left was glaring. LASK ran through it.
The cost of failure
The damage is not only sporting. It is financial – and it is heavy.
When Celtic reached the Champions League play-off round before losing to Bayern Munich in 2024-25, their revenue hit £143m, putting them among Europe’s top 60 earners. That same season, Ipswich Town, then the smallest financial player in the English Premier League, still posted £155m.
LASK’s last published turnover was £42m. On paper, this should not have been a contest.
Football finance expert Kieran Maguire estimates missing out on the Champions League this season will cost Celtic north of £20m.
"For every £100 generated in the Champions League in terms of prize money, it works out at about £22 in the Europa League and about £11 in the Conference League," Maguire told BBC Sport Scotland.
"Celtic made about £45m in season 2024-25 when they got to the Champions League knockout play-off - that's total prize money, including the SPFL money, but it's still indicative of how successful the competition can be.
"Aston Villa, who won the Europa League last year, probably made somewhere in the region of £30-35m and at least they have the benefit of automatically qualifying for the Champions League.
"It is a blow for Celtic. If you look at their share price today, it is down about 4-5%, reflecting that impact on future revenues."
The shortfall stretches beyond prize money. Two years ago, Celtic charged £44 more for an adult four-match Champions League package than for the Europa League equivalent. Hospitality prices soared even higher for nights under the biggest lights.
O’Neill has already admitted transfer targets will need to be reassessed after this defeat. Maguire expects sponsor bonuses to take a hit as well.
"Celtic's fans will buy tickets whether it's Real Madrid or Raith Rovers," he said, "but in terms of the prices that can be charged - especially for corporate and hospitality - it's a licence to name your own price when big European clubs come to town."
That licence has just been revoked.
Fury in the stands and online
The reaction from supporters was swift and savage.
"Gerry" fumed that McGregor’s rallying cry – "we'll now see what people are made of" – came far too late. "We are not a Champions League club. Simple. The board are a shambles and responsible for the club's failures again and again."
"Eamonn" pointed the finger at years of poor squad building. "The squad is the accumulation of four or five disastrous windows. Four recent signings weren't going to fix that."
"Martin" railed at a board he believes spends only after qualification, not before. "We actually need a board that spends meaningful cash to ensure we have the best possible chance of negotiating these horrible qualifiers. Celtic were dead on their feet at the end - one of the worst results and performances in our modern history."
"Patrick" reserved praise for one man. "Viljami Sinisalo is the only player who showed up, everyone else was a passenger. Reo Hatate and Luke McCowan should be kicked out the door." He called it another wasted year and asked the question many are now whispering: "Odds on Martin O'Neill gone by Christmas?"
"Danny" called it "heartbreaking", saying the lack of depth and quality was brutally exposed and that last week’s screamers had masked deeper problems. "Reality came back to bite us. Credit to LASK."
"Paul" went further, arguing it might be "best we're not in the Champions League" playing like this. He singled out McCowan, Sebastian Tounekti, Yang Hyun-jun and Ralston as players who should be moved on and insisted O’Neill must share the blame. "Team didn't know whether to go for it or defend."
The anger is not just about one night in Linz. It is about a pattern.
Scotland’s slide – and a fragile route back
For Scottish football, Celtic’s collapse is another marker in a wider decline.
Not long ago, Scotland sat as high as ninth in Uefa’s coefficient table, a position that brought a guaranteed Champions League group-stage place for the Premiership champions and only two qualifying rounds for the runners-up. That was between 2021 and 2023.
Now the country has fallen to 18th. This season’s champions will enter the Champions League in the second qualifying round. The runners-up will drop into the Conference League qualifiers.
Celtic’s exit to LASK underlined the drop-off, but it does not end the story. The Europa League still offers a route to valuable coefficient points.
When Celtic reached the Champions League knockout play-off round in 2024-25, they collected 17.70 points. Rangers, by going to the last 16 of the Europa League that same season, earned even more – 19.750.
So there is still scope for a positive outcome from this mess, at least on paper. Celtic in the Europa League can help repair Scotland’s standing.
Right now, in the live coefficient table, Scotland have already slipped to 19th, with no danger of dropping further this season. The climb back up, though, depends on more than Celtic. Rangers, Hibernian and Motherwell must navigate their way into the Conference League groups on Thursday to keep the country’s hopes of a rebound alive.
The realistic target is clear: get back into the top 15, where the Premiership runners-up regain a Champions League route.
For Celtic, the numbers, the rankings and the revenue forecasts all matter. But the image that will linger is simpler: a team three goals clear, shrinking under pressure in Linz, and a club once again staring at the Champions League from the outside.
