Celtic's Champions League Collapse: A Painful Post-Mortem
Six attempts in eight years. Six failures. Another wrecked Champions League bid for Celtic, and this one will sting for a long time.
They have grown used to post-mortems in August, but not like this. Not from 3-0 up in Glasgow. Not from a position of total control in Linz.
Three quarters of the way through the tie, Celtic were still three goals clear on aggregate. They even scored first in Austria. From there, the night unravelled into a collapse that felt both shocking and, by the end, horribly predictable.
LASK’s equaliser on 90 minutes, to make it 4-4 on aggregate, had been coming for most of the second half. The fifth goal, the one that knocked Celtic out, felt like the natural conclusion to a siege that the Scottish champions simply could not withstand.
A perfect start to the season – four competitive wins, 13 goals, optimism everywhere – has been shredded in 90 chaotic minutes.
Fear, frailty and a midfield that vanished
Callum McGregor did not sugar-coat it. The Celtic captain admitted his side looked “scared” and “passive” as LASK poured forward in waves. Those words cut to the heart of the performance: Celtic stopped competing in midfield and never started again.
The errors were brutal and costly. Benjamin Nygren, Auston Trusty and Luke McCowan all made mistakes that led directly to goals. Every slip seemed to feed LASK’s belief and drain Celtic’s.
On the touchline, Martin O’Neill took the blame. Former captain Scott Brown, though, was unconvinced that it belonged solely with the manager.
“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.”
The state of Celtic’s defence by full-time told its own story. Third-choice right-back Anthony Ralston. Trusty, who had been ill and missed training in the build-up. Academy prospect Dane Murray, thrown into the fire. Liam Scales shunted out of position at left-back.
For Brown, the conclusion is obvious: this squad does not have the depth required for Europe’s elite 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 gaping hole in the middle
Celtic have not been inactive in the market. Big money has gone on forwards Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran. Midfielder Mika Baur and winger Haissem Hassan have also arrived.
But the departures cut deep. Daizen Maeda gone to Ipswich Town. Arne Engels sold to West Ham United. Key figures, moved on before the most important tie of the season.
Former striker Chris Sutton publicly questioned that strategy on social media. Brown, watching the midfield get overrun in Linz, saw the absence of Engels as decisive.
“What they're missing is probably another physical centre-midfielder that can be alongside [McGregor] in there to help him out,” Brown 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 midfield that once allowed Celtic to impose themselves instead became a corridor for LASK’s runners. The gap between domestic comfort and European reality was exposed again.
The cost of failure – and the shrinking gap to others
On the balance sheet, this defeat is just as bruising. When Celtic reached the Champions League play-off round in 2024-25, their revenue hit £143m, putting them among Europe’s top 60 earners.
In the same season, Ipswich Town – bottom of the Premier League revenue table – still brought in £155m. LASK, whose last published turnover was £42m, have now knocked out a club more than three times their size financially.
Football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes missing the Champions League this time will cost Celtic more than £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,” he 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 financial hit does not end with UEFA cheques. Two years ago, Celtic charged £44 more for an adult four-game Champions League ticket package than they did for the Europa League equivalent. Corporate and hospitality prices rose even higher when Europe’s giants came to Glasgow.
O’Neill has already spoken about reassessing transfer targets after this defeat. Maguire expects sponsor bonuses to take a hit too.
“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.”
Anger in the stands and online
The reaction from supporters has been furious, weary, and deeply familiar.
“Callum McGregor says we'll now see what people are made of. Bit late,” wrote Gerry. “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 to years of drift rather than one bad night: “The squad is the accumulation of four or five disastrous windows. Four recent signings weren't going to fix that.”
Martin turned his fire on the club’s long-standing approach to spending: “We are a club that have a board that wait until we get into the Champions League before spending any meaningful cash when 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.”
Others homed in on individuals. Patrick praised Viljami Sinisalo as “the only player who showed up” and said Reo Hatate and McCowan “should be kicked out the door”, before wondering aloud about “Odds on Martin O'Neill gone by Christmas?”
Danny called it “heartbreaking”, arguing the lack of depth and quality had been “harshly exposed” and that last week’s screamers had merely delayed “reality”. Paul, equally scathing, claimed “playing like that, it's probably best we're not in the Champions League” and said several players should be told to find new clubs. O’Neill, he added, “needs to take his share of the blame… Team didn't know whether to go for it or defend.”
The sense is not just of a single defeat, but of a pattern the support no longer accepts.
Scotland’s slide and what comes next
All of this feeds into a wider story. Scotland’s climb to ninth in UEFA’s coefficient table between 2021 and 2023 now feels distant. That position guaranteed the Premiership champions a place in the Champions League group stage and gave the runners-up a shorter qualifying path.
That era is over. A sharp decline has dropped Scotland to 18th. This season’s champions will start in the second qualifying round of the Champions League. The runners-up will go into the Conference League qualifiers.
Celtic’s collapse against LASK underlined that decline, but it does not have to define the future. When Celtic reached the Champions League knockout play-off round in 2024-25, they earned 17.70 coefficient points. Rangers, by going to the last 16 of the Europa League, earned even more – 19.750.
So Celtic’s switch to the Europa League is not automatically a disaster for Scotland’s ranking. A deep run can still haul in serious points.
In the live coefficient table, including this season, Scotland have already slipped to 19th, with no immediate risk of dropping further. The real danger lies in stagnation. If Rangers, Hibernian and Motherwell fall at the final hurdle in their Conference League play-offs on Thursday, the climb back becomes much harder.
The short-term target is clear: return to the top 15, where the league runners-up regain a Champions League route.
For Celtic, the questions are sharper. Another year outside the Champions League. Another rebuild promised. Another vow to learn from a collapse that looked all too familiar. How many more times can a club of this size afford to ask the same questions without changing the answers?
