An embarrassing Champions League exit Tuesday for Celtic in the qualifying playoffs somehow was even worse than last year.
Meltdown. Implosion. Humiliation.
Celtic led 4-0 on aggregate score Tuesday after a half hour of the second leg in Austria, yet five unanswered goals by LASK — the fifth and decisive one coming in extra time of a 5-1 win — still felt like coach Martin O’Neill’s team got off lightly with a 5-4 loss on aggregate score.
It is now two straight years the Scottish title holder has wasted clear chances to play on the lucrative biggest stage of European club soccer by losing in late-August to an unheralded team advancing for the very first time.
“We were far too passive. We don’t have any excuses,” said Callum McGregor, the Celtic captain whose 21st-minute goal Tuesday had seemed likely to secure the Champions League entry.
It increasingly looks unacceptable to fans of a storied club that won the European Cup in 1967, before any English team had lifted the iconic trophy.
Exactly one year ago, Celtic could not score in either leg against Kairat Almaty and, after a pair of scoreless draws, went out in a penalty shootout in Kazakhstan.
That exit seemed reckless, to Celtic fans, after the club declined to spend its deep cash reserves on strengthening the squad in the offseason.
Those decisions by the board cost Celtic potentially tens of millions of euros (dollars) in UEFA prize money and fueled tensions at the club.
Coach Brendan Rodgers left within weeks and long-serving chairman Peter Lawwell left in December citing threats to his family by fans.
The rifts and bad atmosphere were healed eventually — following Wilfried Nancy’s short reign as coach — by the return of club icon O’Neill as an interim coach initially.
Steadied by O’Neill’s managerial skills, and helped by a hugely controversial refereeing decision in the second-last game, Celtic hunted down long-time league leader Heart of Midlothian in a highly dramatic last-day showdown.
That title win sent Celtic into the Champions League qualifying playoffs round, starting fully one month after Hearts was quickly eliminated in an earlier round. Hearts also fell to a heavy four-goal defeat in Austria, against Sturm Graz.
As Scottish champion, and seeded in the playoffs draw, Celtic just had to get past a relative European novice in LASK to rejoin the elite in the Champions League draw on Thursday in Monaco.
Two goals in the 3-0 first-leg win last week by newly signed Colombian striker Camilo Durán, plus the offseason addition of Bodø/Glimt forward Kasper Høgh, suggested lessons had been learned.
Instead, after a humbling display Tuesday coughing up a four-goal lead in Linz, Celtic will be in the second-tier Europa League draw on Friday.
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Graham Dunbar, The Associated Press
