“I said to them that they had disturbed my coffee in London. And why should I be coming all this way up here to tell them what they should already know? That they are actually very, very talented players,” he explained.
O’Neill’s pre-match team talks have taken on legendary status in the time since his first spell, primarily thanks to countless retrospective interviews from his former players. John Hartson once described them as ‘magical’ while Johan Mjallby reckons his former boss could have become a world leader. But even now, the interim Celtic boss insists you can never quite know if your words hit home.
“I think that might be stretching it,” he said. “I would always take the credit for it, but I wouldn’t be totally sure about that.”
The modern Celtic dressing room is more multilingual than the one he inherited in 2000. “When I had team talks in the early days at Celtic, even the Swedish players could speak English. Lubo Moravcik might have found it a bit difficult, but outside of that, they could understand it. Here now, there might be one or two who struggle. For instance, the little Uruguayan fella [Marcelo Saracchi] can’t speak a word of English, or very little English, but he’s a nice kid. And he’s dogged, isn’t he?
“I sat at the table with him there and Jota was in, and he can speak a few languages, so he was doing a bit of interpreting. Wee Jota said to me, ‘do you know Gaffer, when you first met the players and had that little talk, and asked if everybody understood, he nodded his head, but he didn’t get it!’”
“You would have to instil that in them. I think outside Callum McGregor and the goalkeeper, you wouldn’t have that many really boisterous characters. But my dressing room with the likes of Neil Lennon and all that group… outside a couple of fights with Bobo Balde and Stiliyan Petrov when he had him by the neck, they were good, they were terrific.”
For all his humour, O’Neill hasn’t lost that competitive glint and his immediate task has been simple: restore Celtic’s confidence. A 4-0 victory on Wednesday night has helped.
“Just winning the game against Falkirk was the most important thing, and just getting back to that,” he said. “Every side that has won has had dips, and they’ve had dips during the course of the season, you just have to try and come out of it.
“I’m not saying all of them in the dressing room are winners, they’re not. There’s a group of young lads in the side. But they have a winning captain, James Forrest has been here a long time as well, so they should know how to win. It’s just a matter of reinforcing that.”
Sunday’s semi-final against Rangers presents another opportunity to take a step forward.
“That would give you an enormous lift, it would give the whole dressing room an enormous lift,” he said. “Of course, Rangers will think exactly the same too in the state of their season, but for us, that would be terrific.”
There will be late selection calls on Kieran Tierney, Marcelo Saracchi and Daizen Maeda for the encounter, all of whom have dealt with fitness issues this week. On Celtic’s Japanese forward, who had 25 minutes off the bench against Falkirk after a hamstring complaint, the hint from O’Neill is that he will be involved from the start if it’s at all possible.
“Daizen Maeda is a big player for us,” he said. “Especially at this minute considering some of the players that are out. He is absolutely the talisman, there is no question about it. He’s a big player for us and he’s been a really good player as I’ve watched the games from afar.”
O’Neill is the first to admit he wasn’t expecting to be back at all.
“On Tuesday I had a lunch in London with myself and Barry Hearn as the guests,” he recalled. “It had gone quite well before, so we had lunch prepared, so to tell them we can’t come was disappointing.”
Would he have been watching Celtic v Rangers anyway? “Oh, absolutely. I would have been tuned in to watching this game, in the house.”
“It would be ridiculous for me to say that I got as passionate about it as I was as a manager, but I’d take more than a passing interest in it. The Celtic-Rangers game I would seldom miss.”
Now, he’ll be living it again at Hampden Park, no less, a venue that holds decades of memories.
“I’ve had good moments at Hampden and I’ve had bad moments,” he said. “In fact, Rangers beat us there one day in the Scottish Cup Final, Peter Lovenkrands scored. I’ve tried to find out where he’s living for a number of years so I can shout ‘boo’ at him.”
O’Neill’s return has been warmly received by supporters and former colleagues alike. “Lenny dropped me a wee message and Gordon too,” he said. “Ange is probably hanging about in Australia at the minute, I don’t know, but I’m sure it won’t be Celtic he’ll be talking about, he’ll be talking about Evangelos Maranakis! I would just say to him, ‘I got a longer stretch than you, mate!’”
He hasn’t spoken to Rodgers since the handover. “I can understand Brendan’s thoughts at this minute might be miles away, and I’m not even sure that Brendan and I have got each other’s numbers,” he admitted. “I met him at a Celtic function last time, and for one of the Champions League games last season I came up and did a little interview with him for TNT. That was actually the first time I’ve ever been to Lennoxtown.
“I came up here when Celtic were just thinking about it, and it was just a set of fields and the castle. That was it. The next time I came up this had all happened.”
That detail says plenty about how much has changed. But the sight of O’Neill back on the touchline this week, gesturing, urging, demanding, offered Celtic supporters a reminder of his value.
For him, this weekend is another chance to draw on those instincts. To lift a team that has looked unsure of itself and to remind a club of its identity.
The thrust of Sunday’s dressing room address then? As simple as ever.
“My message would be one, remember what you are representing for a start, and two, be up to the task. And this is a big task. But just be up to it.”