NO FAVOURS FOR CELTIC COUSINS
Boss has only one aim as he plots a raid on city he calls his second home
AS HE SNIFFS the chill east Glasgow air on Thursday evening ahead of battle, and glances at the empty stands with their green and white livery, Martin O’Neill will be entitled to a quiet moment of retrospection. Parkhead was his spiritual home for five years, a place of work and wonder, where he forged his reputation as an elite manager on rollicking European nights and engaging domestic duels with big-spending Rangers.
‘I had a great time at Celtic. I loved it. I am obviously biased but I happen to think it is the greatest club in the world,’ purred the Ireland manager ahead of his return to a ground, and a city, he knows so well. He’ll be sentimental so? ‘I don’t know. It’s not as if I’m going back and Celtic are involved in the game,’ he said.
Seeking to win an international in Glasgow for the first time, something he never managed as a player, O’Neill acknowledges Scotland have ‘impetus’ under manager Gordon Strachan.
‘There is a new hope there under Gordon. Definitely. And I think it is something that the players feel. And that is important. It’s not just the fans, but the players actually feel it,’ said the Irish manager.
‘He has had the time to sort out his squad and deal with things, and they have got a bit of impetus,’ he added. ‘I don’t profess to know him too well,’ he said. ‘I met up with him at the World Cup, we were at the same hotel but we never did the same [ITV] programme together. I wouldn’t know him too well and he wouldn’t know me too well either,’ he said.
Their paths as players overlapped in the early 1980s when Northern Ireland and Scotland enjoyed the rarefied atmosphere of World Cup finals qualification. Prior to Argentina ’78, Scotland’s send-off game was against Northern Ireland in Hampden where O’Neill came up with a ploy to unsettle his Nottingham Forest collegue John Robertson, making his Scottish debut.
‘I got Bryan Hamilton to mark him and that would be anathema to John because John always wanted to be marked by proper full backs and Bryan was a midfield player. Bryan went back to play there. I knew John’s game inside out so we guided him (Bryan) the whole way through,’ he recalled.
‘I have never known somebody so frustrated in a match, Robertson was a great player but because it was his debut he was a wee bit nervous and he couldn’t get to grips with it.’
The game ended 1-1, a scoreline O’Neill would probably settle for again on Friday. What’s certain is that he’ll have his thinking cap on, seeking ways to disrupt Strachan’s strategy. As his Irish predecessor Giovanni Trapattoni always insisted, it’s the little details that can make all the difference.
OF IRELAND’S 10 Euro 2016 qualifiers, none come with more emotional baggage than this, at the stadium where he was hailed as a messianic figure. His domestic trophy haul of seven in five years was exceptional, as was the memorable march to the UEFA Cup final in 2003, the seven straight Old Firm wins and the treble year of 2001. Yet, when O’Neill was pressed to recall his Celtic stand-out memories, he plucked an unlikely snapshot.
‘When we won the League Cup against Kilmarnock – that was a big moment. It was the first trophy we won, and it was great. We had a bit of a party down by the riverside and then we parked it to the side and went on, knowing we had something to show for our first season.
‘I could nearly pick out more disappointing moments than great ones, but that was a great night.’
The let-downs were many, the UEFA Cup extra-time heartache to Porto, the loss of one SPL title by a goal, and another, in O’Neill’s last year, by a point after a 2-0 final day defeat to Motherwell. ‘That Motherwell result just sits with me there (in my stomach) forever and a day. It’s possibly a bigger disappointment than Seville,’ he said.
As he reflected on his time at Celtic, O’Neill’s eyes lit up when asked who did Celtic beat in the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup.
‘It was Boavista, and it was thanks to Henrik Larsson. Henrik scored out there when we just couldn’t seem to break them down. You know it’s nice to know you’ve got someone to win the game for you, who comes up big with a goal. Of course, in the (UEFA) final, I thought that was Henrik’s best-ever game for us,’ he said, adding, ‘he had hundreds of great games for us.’
[Strachan] has had the time to sort out his squad and deal with things .... they have got a bit of impetus
Predictably, the Rangers rivalry ran deep under O’Neill who arrived at a time of Ibrox rule in Glasgow to the extent that Dick Advocaat ‘had just taken on eight players that summer andnd said he was using five for the league and the others for the Champions League’.
EVEN so, O’Neill’s Old Firm initiation was a thumping 6-2 win over the ’Gers. ‘I thought, “Isn’t this great? Isn’t life fantastic?”,’ he chuckled. ‘Then we went to Ibrox about two months later and got turned urned over for five when it was 1-1 at one stage, and you think “that’s hard to take”.’
O’Neill loved those Rangers nights. ‘The intensity, you could feel it; it was in the air all the time. here was a part of you that looked forward to the games. You had to be there to witness and experience it.’ There was black humour amid the hostility too. Like the time Celtic lost the Scottish Cup final to Rangers in 2002 and when O’Neill arrived home from Hampden there was a huge Union Jack draped across his front garden. ‘It was the biggest flag you have ever seen... it was massive,’ he recalled. ‘So, I phoned the police, they came round and the two lads had a cup of tea in the house and there it was [the story] in the paper the next day. There was only one way the reporter could have found out,’ he added wryly. O’Neill denied the incident had been upsetting. ‘It was there as a sign to say, “we won tonight, don’t forget that.” I have said this before, you can get dog’s abuse at any of the grounds and you expected it. At Rangers, you daren’t look behind you in games because you felt as if everybody was waiting for you to do so, that everyone was staring at you.
‘I could count on the fingers of one hand the times I was verbally abused on the streets of Glasgow. I never sought trouble, unlike my little mate, (Neil) Lennon,’ he said with a laugh.
‘My wife and I used to eat out early and be back in the house at about half seven or so before the boys were even remotely revved up.’
It was illness to his wife, Geraldine, that led to his departure as Celtic manager in 2005 and prompted Strachan’s appointment.
‘What I think I left him, which I have ne never said before, was a decent side, whereas the side that I inherited wasn’t all that decent.’ As manager of Celtic, O’Neill hardly put a foot out of place, yet he’s wary of taking a wrong turn next Friday – by going to the home dressing room in error.
‘I’ve only been back for two games; John Kennedy, who injured himself, had a testimonial game and Stiliyan Petrov had one a couple of years later.
‘We were still in the home dressing room both times, so it will be really strange to turn the other way when I go back.’
Under O’Neill, Ireland have yet to take a wrong turn in the Euro qualifiers. Surviving the Parkhead bear pit unscathed will ensure they sign off 2014 unbeaten in Group D and headed in the right direction.