{"id":615158,"date":"2026-06-01T11:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T11:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/615158\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T11:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T11:57:09","slug":"celtic-flop-in-astonishing-oneill-attack-after-title-win-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/615158\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtic flop in astonishing O’Neill attack after title win pain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Celtic splashed out a huge sum of \u00a35.75 million back in 1999 under John Barnes, but the move turned into a nightmare for Berkovic when Barnes was sacked following an infamous Scottish Cup<\/a> loss to Caley Thistle and he was frozen out by O’Neill, in his first spell as Celtic boss, before eventually signing for Manchester City, after a loan spell at Blackburn Rovers.\n<\/p>\n

\n Berkovic, speaking on his own ‘The magician and his sons’ podcast revealed he watched veteran boss O’Neill guide Celtic to an unexpected title when they beat Hearts 3-1 on the final day showdown.\n<\/p>\n

\n And he bizarrely likened the 74-year-old Hoops icon to Haman – a mythical hate figure in the Hebrew bible who ordered the extermination of all Jewish people in the Persian empire because a royal family member wouldn’t bow down to him.\n<\/p>\n

\n Berkovic said: “I watched the Celtic match against Hearts and I was really gutted.\n<\/p>\n

\n “The whole stand is full of Palestinian flags. And worst of all….who\u2019s on the touchline? Martin O\u2019Neill, the one who sacked me.\n<\/p>\n

\n “To me, Martin O\u2019Neill is the evil Haman of football.\n<\/p>\n

\n “So I was really p***ed off by what happened. I prayed the whole game they would lose. Honestly, I was heartbroken they won it.\n<\/p>\n

\n “Let me tell you a story about my time at Celtic.\n<\/p>\n

\n “I was their biggest transfer of all time there. They sent a helicopter to sign me.\n<\/p>\n

\n “The first game, we had to go on a three hour drive to Aberdeen<\/a> and we put on a show and won 5-0. I set up three of the goals.\n<\/p>\n

\n “On the way back, I was on the phone to my agent Pini Zahavi and I told him, ‘if you don’t find me a new club tomorrow, I am not working with you again.’\n<\/p>\n

\n “I wanted out of there after one game.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtic splashed out a huge sum of \u00a35.75 million back in 1999 under John Barnes, but the move…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-615158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}