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When Celtic opened the scoring against Lask courtesy of a low Callum McGregor shot after 21 minutes on Tuesday night, the Scottish champions looked to have exorcised their Bigger Cup demons from 12 months ago. Four goals ahead of their Austrian hosts on aggregate, it seemed utterly inconceivable that Martin O’Neill’s side could emulate, let alone eclipse, their humiliation at the hands of Kairat Almaty last August and the match commentator intoned as much. “And with that moment, this tie surely moves beyond the grasp of Lask,” soothed Bill Leslie, as the Celtic skipper’s deflected daisy-cutter fizzed past the home goalkeeper and rippled the Austrian champions’ net. While one could argue Bill has commentated on enough fitba over the years to know better than to count unhatched chickens, not even the combined forces of Mystic Meg and Nostradamus could have foreseen the calamitous capitulation that was about to unfold. From a position of apparent indomitability, Celtic proceeded to ship five goals without reply to endure what is arguably the Grand Old Team To Play For’s greatest European embarrassment yet.
“We should have been out of sight by half-time,” wailed Martin O’Neill at the end of a 5-1 second leg pasting that actually flattered his side. “We scored a goal, which was great. We missed two great, great opportunities. And then we give them a lifeline just before half-time and then one just after it. And they come roaring back. And obviously we conceded, from our viewpoint, not good goals at all. But that’s my team and that’s my responsibility.” Of course, O’Neill’s was just one of many angry post-mortems with Celtic grandees such as Chris Sutton, Kasper Schmeichel, Stiliyan Petrov and Neil Lennon all queuing up to stick the boot in, having apparently forgotten their contributions to various Euro horror shows for the club down the years.
While Celtic’s exit at the same stage of Bigger Cup last season was attributed to a famously parsimonious board’s reluctance to spend money on players until after qualification for the league phase had been secured, the same accusation cannot be levelled this time around. Having parted with £23m – a decent wedge by fitba standards – on four new players over the summer with more due through the door, club bean-counters are now being criticised for selling top players Arne Engels and Daizen Maeda before qualification had been secured. Unable to do right for doing wrong, Celtic’s owners must now mull over the loss of a series of Bigger Cup paydays that could cost them as much as £40m. It will be a source of constant regret that Tuesday’s second leg wasn’t played at Celtic Park, where the timely and now traditional pitch invasion would almost certainly have denied Lask the 90th-minute goal that took the tie to extra time.
While Celtic’s humbling is also an embarrassment for Scottish fitba, there will be little or no sympathy from rivals who will view their misfortune as karmic retribution for a title acquired through a combination of highly questionable refereeing and some atrocious fan behaviour during that final-day title decider against Hearts. “We got what we deserved,” seethed McGregor after the game. “Now we’ll see what people are made of,” he added, having just shown what he and his teammates were made of. After Tuesday’s shambles, one suspects it will take more than a home win over Falkirk on Saturday to ease the pain.
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“When I made the substitutions, including taking [him] off, I believed the players coming on could make an impact. I came here to help the players, so as I said, I’m proud of them because every substitute made a positive contribution” – a penny for Roberto Martínez’s thoughts as Ange Postecoglou explains how substituting Cristiano Ronaldo with his 10-man Al-Nassr side 2-0 down, helped them to mount an extraordinary comeback to beat Al-Ettifaq 3-2.
double quotation markI gave up trying to understand football finances long ago, but even so I’m staggered by how many clubs have been able to get shot of underperforming recruits recently, for a price way more than they paid for the (now unwanted) player in the first place. Oh, and while I’m here, anyone interested in buying a second hand telly? The sound doesn’t work and I’ve lost the remote; I paid £50 for it but I’ll take £100” – Phil Taverner.
double quotation markNoble Francis’s letter about Chelsea’s game-winning arithmetic tactics (yesterday’s Football Daily letters) is so reminiscent of Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle. Who cares if the other side score nine, we’ll score 10, seemed to be the mindset. As for Chelsea against the rest of the Premier League, for the sake of my fantasy team, I’ll love it if they beat them” – Ken Muir.
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