Celtic Put on One of the Most Impressively Embarassing Bottle-Jobs in Champions League History Last Night

The Scottish Tottenham - Celtic Complete a Bottlejob for the Ages

Ah Celtic. Just as you save yourselves from the reputation of bottle-jobs by snatching the Scottish Premiership on the final day of the 2025/26 season, it took you just five games of the new campaign to bestow yourselves with just that title anyway.

Champions League qualification has always seemed like something of a breeze for the Bhoys, a club who has a hall of fame of players who showed up under the light in Europe’s most esteemed competition.

⏱️ 21': LASK 0-4 Celtic (agg)
⏱️ 90': LASK 4-4 Celtic (agg)

🤯😱 #UCL pic.twitter.com/1N6ABwLOqx

— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) August 26, 2026

It truly was an impressive bottle job. They were, for 11 minutes, four goals up in the tie - that’s the type of lead where fans start to look ahead to when the draw is made and ensure their evening is free.

Last night made it clear that a new, much less iconic age is upon us at Celtic Park - the club have failed to reach the Champions League league phase in each of the last two seasons, and last night's utter capitulation against Austrian champions LASK underlined that now more than ever, Celtic are no longer able to eat at the big boys table.

Heartbreak and Humiliation

After a straightforward 3-0 win in the first leg at Celtic Park thanks to three stunning goals - two from Camilo Duran, one from Benjamin Nygren, Celtic had all but bagged themselves a spot in the Champions League proper. Even with the second league being played in the hostile Raiffeisen Arena, no hooped fan was truly thinking about the worst case scenario.

If anyone was, thoughts of the unthinkable were truly banished when Captain Callum McGregor fired his side to a 4-0 aggregate lead via a deflection. 70 minutes of football remaining, and Celtic weren’t just in the driving seat, they were lapping their opponents.

It is hard to pinpoint where momentum shifted, but it was likely when scorer McGregor played a woeful pass back towards his keeper 11 minutes later, a shocking lapse that allowed Moses Usor to slot past the on-rushing Sinisalo to hand LASK their first goal of the tie. It was careless, sloppy, and completely unnecessary from a Celtic viewpoint, but even so, it was seen as a consolation more than anything else.

Afterall, the Bhoys held a 4-1 aggregate lead at half time, and though three goals in 45 minutes has been known to happen, it is so astronomically unlikely that very few teams give the idea the time of day.

It would, however, have started to feel like a distant possibility when Robert Ljubicic smashed a low, zipping shot into the corner from the edge of the box, reducing the deficit to two, and still with 42 minutes remaining.

You could tell Celtic were starting to panic - rash in the challenge, rushed on the ball, decision-making all over the shop. Positionally, they were absolutely nowhere, and their shocking man marking allowed LASK another nine minutes later, as a woefully unmarked Samuel Adeniran was allowed to shape a beautiful effort into the far corner from 25 yards.

Celtic were now at sixes and sevens, and could have been brought back on level terms as early as the 68th minute, when Sinisalo was forced to tip a deflected Sascha Horvath effort behind. Adeniran smacked the crossbar two minutes later LASK just kept on coming, and had anyone other than Sinisalo been in goal, the game would have been decided much sooner.

However, at 89:59, even the Finnish keeper couldn’t rescue the Scottish side, after a superb diving save saw the ball parried into the path of Florian Flecker, who nodded into an undefended net and sent the Raiffeisen into pandemonium. Massive kudos to the Austrian side, obviously - but Celtic should never have allowed it to even be a possibility.

The comeback ripped what spirit Celtic had left out of them, and when Adeniran slotted in another long-range lefty effort in the 18th minute of extra time, hardly anyone was surprised - given the way the game had gone, it was only a shock that it hadn’t come sooner.

From 4-0 down to 5-4 up 🤯

The goal that completed an incredible comeback for LASK against Celtic!

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— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) August 25, 2026

The final whistle blew, and neither fanbase could believe it. LASK had qualified for the Champions League proper for the first time in their history, while Celtic had ensured that they would be competing in the Europa League for the duration of the 2026/27 campaign.

Tough Times Never Last

Being a Celtic fan over the last 18 months has not been easy. Abandoned by the legendary Brendan Rodgers just nine games into last season, it seemed everything had panned out when Martin O’Neill was appointed as his temporary replacement.

However, the dreadful decision to instate Wilfried Nancy as the club's new permanent manager in December backfired spectacularly, with the Frenchman winning just two of his eight games in charge of the club as the Bhoys all but handed league leaders Hearts the title.

Fortunately, the Celtic hierarchy realised the error of their ways, firing Nancy after less than a month in charge, and bringing the steady hand of O’Neill back until the end of the season, a move which saw Celtic claw back the ground on Hearts, and beat them on the final day to steal another Premiership title.

O’Neill has also guided them to a winning start in both the league and Scottish Cup, but Tuesday’s meltdown against LASK was evidence that the Scottish juggernauts are still nowhere near their prime.

It is still early in the season, and some players may be shaking the summer cobwebs out, or simply adapting to the new system after securing a move to Celtic Park, but their astonishing 5-1 defeat in Austria was a wake up call to all: if you fail to show up, you get humiliated. If you don’t want that feeling again, bloody show up!