Celtic Park hosts a pivotal European night on Wednesday as Martin O'Neill's side take on Austrian champions LASK in the first leg of their Champions League play-off tie, with a place in the lucrative league phase at stake.
O'Neill, back in the dugout after undergoing a minor hospital procedure earlier this month, returned to Celtic last season and immediately delivered silverware, steering the club to a domestic double after edging out Hearts on the final day of the Premiership title race. Now the 74-year-old boss is chasing a different kind of achievement — guiding Celtic back into Europe's premier club competition, more than two decades after he led the Glasgow club to the UEFA Cup final in 2003.
The stakes are heightened by painful recent history. Celtic have stumbled at the play-off stage in five of their last six qualifying campaigns, a run stretching back to a defeat to Astana in 2017-18. The most recent failure was arguably the most damaging: a penalty shootout loss to Kazakh side Kairat Almaty last season, a result that effectively ended Brendan Rodgers' time in charge. That exit stung even more given Celtic had pushed European giants Bayern Munich close in the previous season's knockout rounds. In the two campaigns Celtic did reach the Champions League proper, they qualified automatically without needing to navigate the play-off round.
Standing in their way this time are LASK, who arrive at Celtic Park chasing history of their own. The Austrian outfit won their domestic Bundesliga title for the first time since 1965 and are bidding to reach the Champions League for the very first time in the club's history.
O'Neill made three changes to the side that beat Dundee United 4-0 in the Scottish League Cup at the weekend. Mika Baur, signed just six days ago from Paderborn on a four-year deal, was handed his first start for the club in midfield alongside captain Callum McGregor. The 22-year-old German Under-21 international arrives with the task of filling the void left by Arne Engels, who departed for West Ham.
"He is a player with some excellent attributes, great technical ability, he will be important in linking our play and he has real versatility too," O'Neill said of his new midfielder ahead of kick-off.
Elsewhere in the side, Colby Donovan started at right-back in place of the sidelined Alistair Johnston, while Kieran Tierney returned to the starting XI at left-back. New arrivals Kasper Hogh and Camilo Duran were also included from the outset, with Yang Hyun-jun preferred to Sebastian Tounekti out wide and Benjamin Nygren operating in support of Hogh. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain remained unavailable, still working through a three-match suspension carried over from a red card picked up while at Besiktas in 2023.
Celtic lined up: Sinisalo; Donovan, Carter-Vickers, Trusty, Tierney; McGregor, Baur; Yang, Nygren, Duran; Hogh.
Captain McGregor has acknowledged that the current squad requires reinforcement as the club looks to rebuild momentum on the continental stage. With kick-off at 8pm, Celtic Park was set for one of its atmospheric European nights, the kind that were sorely missed last season following the Kairat setback. A positive result against LASK would represent a significant step toward erasing those recent scars and restoring Celtic's presence among Europe's elite.
Based on reporting from The Independent.