Rinse and Repeat – Maribor, Malmo, AEK, Cluj, Ferencváros, Midtjylland – and now Kairat

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The Celtic Star

·26 Agustus 2025

Rinse and Repeat – Maribor, Malmo, AEK, Cluj, Ferencváros, Midtjylland – and now Kairat

Niall J submitted this piece which you can read below, however here’s his little note that he sent alongside the article which you might also be interest in…

Celtic fans in the stands Kairat Almaty v Celtic, UEFA Champions League, Play-Off Round, Second Leg, Football, Almaty Central Stadium, Almaty, Kazakhstan – 26 Aug 2025Almaty Almaty Central Stadium Kazakhstan Photo Nikita Bassov/Shutterstock

Hi David. That was galling. 210 minutes plus and not a goal scored. Who would have thought emptying a team of goals assists and creativity would lead to going out with barely an effort on goal? Aye players played their part and the manager could perhaps have done better but this is all on the board. History just repeats almost every time we hit qualifiers. Why am I telling you all that? You know!! One on all of that. All the best Niall

Kieran Tierney of Celtic Kairat Almaty v Celtic, UEFA Champions League, Play-Off Round, Second Leg, Football, Almaty Central Stadium, Almaty, Kazakhstan – 26 Aug 2025Almaty Almaty Central Stadium Kazakhstan Photo Nikita Bassov/Shutterstock

Video OneFootball

So, Celtic are out of the Champions League before the group stages once again…

A night in Almaty that ended with a penalty shootout defeat to Kairat has reopened all the old wounds that the club, and above all its boardroom, has refused to heal.

After two goalless draws – one at Celtic Park, one after 120 minutes in Kazakhstan – it was left to penalties. Adam Idah, Luke McCowan and Daizen Maeda all failed to convert. History has repeated itself, and Celtic are left to face the consequences of a strategy that has long been unfit for purpose.

For Kairat, this is a historic night. They become only the second side from Kazakhstan to reach the Champions League group stage. For Celtic, it is the latest humiliation in a catalogue of them. This wasn’t about bad luck. This wasn’t about penalties. This was about the failures of a board who, once again, sent our team into the biggest games of the season undercooked and underprepared.

Jorginho of Kairat Almaty strikes an indirect free kick which Daizen Maeda of Celtic blocks Kairat Almaty v Celtic, UEFA Champions League, Play-Off Round, Second Leg, Football, Almaty Central Stadium, Almaty, Kazakhstan – 26 Aug just 2025 Almaty Almaty Central Stadium Kazakhstan Photo Nikita Bassov/Shutterstock

To understand the despair of last night, you perhaps have to go back to 2014 and the tie against Maribor. Having already been humiliated 6–1 on aggregate by Legia Warsaw and handed a reprieve thanks only to an administrative error, Celtic should have learned their lesson. Instead, the same complacency reigned. Callum McGregor’s away goal gave Celtic a platform.

The return leg at Celtic Park was supposed to be a formality. Instead, the Slovenians grew into the game, Marcos Tavares struck, and Ronny Deila’s side were booed off the park. It was the first warning sign of what was to come: a team undermined by late recruitment, a manager undermined by lack of backing, a board gambling with qualification rather than planning for it.

Brendan Rodgers manager of Celtic talks with their players before being substituted on Kairat Almaty v Celtic, UEFA Champions League, Play-Off Round, Second Leg, Football, Almaty Central Stadium, Almaty, Kazakhstan – 26 Aug 2025Almaty Almaty Central Stadium Kazakhstan Photo Nikita Bassov/Shutterstock

Maribor was supposed to be the moment Celtic changed tack. Instead, it became the blueprint for a decade of failure.

The pattern repeated itself almost annually. Malmö in 2015 punished Celtic’s fragility in both boxes. AEK Athens in 2018 were no more than organised, but against a Celtic squad left short by lack of investment, they looked like giants. The Cluj tie in 2019 was perhaps the most galling of all: a lead squandered, a home leg thrown away, and Neil Lennon left to front up for a defeat born of structural weakness as much as any tactical naivety. Ferencváros in 2020, again at Celtic Park, was yet another tie lost before it had even truly begun.

What links all these failures is not coincidence but approach. Time and again, Celtic entered these fixtures gambling that the squad was good enough to scrape through, with promises of proper investment once the group stages – and the financial windfall – were secured. Time and again, that gamble failed. And every time, it was the support who bore the brunt of the disappointment.

Benjamin Nygren of Celtic Kairat Almaty v Celtic, UEFA Champions League, Play-Off Round, Second Leg, Football, Almaty Central Stadium, Almaty, Kazakhstan – 26 Aug 2025Almaty Almaty Central Stadium Kazakhstan Photo Nikita Bassov/Shutterstock

Brendan Rodgers’ return was supposed to end the cycle. Yet even before this Kairat tie, the alarm bells were ringing. Rodgers himself, just as Ange Postecoglou had done before him prior to his own exit at the hands of FC Midtjylland in 2021, spoke about having to ‘persuade’ the board over signings. The same frustration, the same implication: Celtic once again went into their most important fixtures of the season short of what was required.

Rodgers has been here before. In 2018, he was sent into battle with AEK Athens without proper reinforcements and gaps everyone could see but the board refused to address. Now, in 2025, the movie has replayed yet again – only this time, the name of the opposition has changed to Kairat Almaty.

Celtic supporters, Kairat Almaty v Celtic, UEFA Champions League, Play-Off Round, Second Leg, Football, Almaty Central Stadium, Almaty, Kazakhstan – 26 Aug 2025Almaty Almaty Central Stadium Kazakhstan Photo Nikita Bassov/Shutterstock

For supporters, this is the cruellest part. Celtic Park on Champions League nights should be about excitement, about possibility. Instead, it has become a theatre of dread, with each qualifying round bringing the same sinking feeling. The atmosphere before Maribor, Malmö, AEK, Cluj, Ferencváros, Midtjylland – and now Kairat – has been laced with foreboding. Fans know what is coming because the mistakes are so familiar.

And after each exit, the boardroom shrugs, the rhetoric of ‘lessons learned’ is rolled out – not publicly, instead briefed through friendly media sources including the odd compliant blogger – and the cycle begins anew.

This summer was no different. A squad still short of quality was left to navigate a treacherous tie against a motivated opponent. When Kairat’s manager said Celtic had underestimated them after the first leg, he could have been speaking for a decade of European opponents who realised too quickly that Celtic’s preparations were not what they should have been.

Kasper Schmeichel of Celtic Kairat Almaty v Celtic, UEFA Champions League, Play-Off Round, Second Leg, Football, Almaty Central Stadium, Almaty, Kazakhstan – 26 Aug 2025Almaty Almaty Central Stadium Kazakhstan Photo Nikita Bassov/Shutterstock

Of course, the players on the pitch missed their penalties. Of course, chances were wasted across the two legs, and of course the manager has to take his share of responsibility. But the deeper truth is that Celtic should never have been in a position where their Champions League fate came down to a shootout in Almaty. A club of this size, with this history, with a bank account bulging with supporters’ money, should have been able to impose itself long before.

That it didn’t is not down to three men missing spot-kicks, but to years of underinvestment, late recruitment, and boardroom complacency.

What makes this all the more painful is that only a few months ago Celtic were close to something greater. In February, against Bayern Munich, we were close to reaching the Champions League last 16. That campaign, for all it had flaws, showed what this team was capable of. It should have been the launchpad for building from a position of strength, of finally matching our ambitions with our resources.

Liam Scales of Celtic Kairat Almaty v Celtic, UEFA Champions League, Play-Off Round, Second Leg, Football, Almaty Central Stadium, Almaty, Kazakhstan – 26 Aug 2025 Almaty Almaty Central Stadium Kazakhstan Photo Nikita Bassov/Shutterstock

Instead, the board chose to gamble yet again. Kyogo sold and not replaced. The same with Nicolas Kuhn. And no cover for the long-term injury to Jota. Goals, assists and creativity by the bucketload lost and not replaced. This was quite simply playing Russian roulette with the hopes and dreams of the support, the players, and the manager. And this time, the chamber wasn’t empty.

Celtic’s exit to Kairat Almaty is not a freak result. It is the entirely predictable consequence of a failed strategy that has been played out, year after year, since Maribor. The board has let the club down, let the manager down, and above all, let the supporters down.

This has to be the last time.

Niall J

Celtic in the Eighties by David Potter. Foreword by Danny McGrain. Published on Celtic Star Books on 5 September 2025. Click on image to pre-order.

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