It all comes down to this. One football match, one 90-minute rumble where the outcome will echo far beyond the borders of Scotland, one battle that will either break hearts or shatter decades of history. One afternoon that could see the coronation of a new maroon-clad monarch, or a continuation of the old emerald empire. In the city known as the Dear Green Place, the glint of silverware peeks through the crowds in this showdown for the ages.
Hearts travel to Parkhead knowing that they need only to take a point to finish as champions. For Celtic, the equation is equally as simple. It is win or bust. Top of the table for the majority of the season going all the way back to September, Hearts have led the dance in impressive fashion, but it is Celtic who want the last song to be theirs.
Celtic released a statement yesterday in which they urged supporters to behave themselves and not run amok across Glasgow city centre should they win the title. Martin O'Neill is hoping to end his time at Celtic on a high with another title win this weekend. The final outcome may yet be unknown. But what is a cast-iron certainty is that those words will fall on deaf ears should they beat Hearts this afternoon.
Celtic have to be seen to be saying something on the matter, like they are trying to be pro-active and get ahead of it. But they know what is coming, as do Glasgow City Council. We all do. Every year, without fail, the Trongate area ends up being wrecked and brought to a standstill as thousands of supporters congregate to celebrate winning the league. Between them, Celtic and Glasgow City Council have had years to come up with an appropriate solution, only for the same chaos and carnage to erupt.
Yet, here is the thing. Even if they do end up dancing down the streets and tearing up the city centre once again, Celtic fans should not lose sight of the bigger picture. On and off the field, this has been a truly shambolic season. It might well be a fairytale ending for Martin O'Neill, and good luck to the old warrior for that, but it has been a nightmare campaign for the club as a whole.
Winning the league title may well mask the symptoms momentarily, but it will not cure the wider disease which has spread throughout this institution. Over these past nine months, the Celtic board have taken aim at pretty much everyone and anyone. At the start, they blamed their own manager in Brendan Rodgers. After handing in his resignation, Rodgers was eviscerated by the club's major shareholder Dermot Desmond in an explosive statement.
Celtic have blamed their own fans, the same people who have been taken for mugs and asked to keep pumping money into the club through the sales of stadium tickets and merchandise. Majority shareholder Dermot Desmond has come in for fierce criticism from the supporters. They openly antagonised their own supporters and insulted their intelligence at an AGM which had to be abandoned due to protests.
They have blamed referees, they have blamed opposition fans, they have blamed the police. The only people they have not blamed at any point for this whole mess is themselves. The lack of self-reflection and self-awareness from Desmond, chief executive Michael Nicholson and interim chairman Brian Wilson has been quite incredible at times.
With O'Neill doing his very best to steer the ship until the end of the season, Celtic are still no further forward with regards to the appointment of a new manager or the wider restructure which is so clearly required. Even if they do go on to lift the trophy this afternoon, the club remains an absolute basket case behind the scenes.
A fairytale finale for O'Neill must not be used as a convenient shield for those who created all of the mess in the first place. Celtic remains an institution crippled by complacency, a lack of vision, and a lack of ambition. Nothing that happens today will change any of that.
Ironically, they would almost certainly have the title wrapped up by now had they stuck with O'Neill in the first place rather than ushering him aside for Wilfried Nancy. In his first match in charge, Nancy lost 2-1 to Hearts at Parkhead back in December. And so ensued the brief and chaotic death spiral over the next 33 days. That was the day when, beyond the ineptitude of the new manager, the colour of Nancy's trainers became the talk of the steamie. Just one of many ridiculous episodes over this most incredible and intoxicating of seasons.
The grand ball is now approaching. O'Neill is now wearing a glass slipper rather than green trainers, but even if he were to bow out with a Cinderella finale, no one should be silly enough to view Desmond as the fairy godmother. Not once but twice this season, Celtic's chief powerbroker has had to issue an SOS call to a man who is now 74 years of age and who really ought to be happily retired by this point.
It is only the alchemy of O'Neill which has dragged Celtic kicking and screaming through a season where the club has lurched from one disaster to another. He will be feted as the saviour by supporters if he can drag Celtic over the line this afternoon. And rightly so. He could walk straight outside the stadium and tell the board where he would like his statue to be built. The emotional bond that exists between O'Neill and Celtic supporters is immense. Only Jock Stein stands above him in the pantheon of the club's all-time greatest managers.
It is McInnes and Hearts who now stand in his way. Given the injustice of what happened at Fir Park on Wednesday night, Hearts will carry goodwill sentiments and support from far and wide. Every Scottish football supporter in the land, barring those of a Celtic persuasion, will be cheering Hearts on to make history.
O'Neill, the old lion summoned from the mists of glory past, chases one glorious last hurrah. One last victory which, no matter how raucously it is cheered, should not be a veil to a profoundly shambolic season. A fairytale for one man does not erase the nightmare for the institution.
