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Thirty minutes into the second leg, Celtic were four goals up on aggregate and heading for the Champions League. Ninety minutes of football later they were out, beaten 5-1 on the night and 5-4 over the tie by the Austrian champions.
Samuel Adeniran's low drive in the 109th minute finished it. He then had the chance to complete a hat-trick from the penalty spot and Viljami Sinisalo palmed it away, which by that stage of the evening changed nothing at all.
How a four-goal lead disappeared
Callum McGregor put Celtic in front on the night after Yang Hyun-jun cut inside from the left and picked him out. The finish took a deflection. That was as good as it got.
LASK had started well and got their reward when Benjamin Nygren under-hit a backpass and Moses Usor tucked it away. Two minutes after half-time, Robert Ljubicic was given the freedom of the edge of the box and beat Sinisalo low to his left, and the mood inside the stadium shifted from nerves to something closer to certainty.
Then Sascha Horvath picked out Adeniran in the middle and he hit it first time from distance. Three-one. With 20 minutes left Celtic were camped in their own third, Adeniran rattled the underside of the bar and Kieran Tierney hooked it off the line. In stoppage time Sinisalo clawed out Alemao's effort and Florian Flecker headed in the rebound to force extra time.
By then Celtic were not defending so much as hanging on with both hands.
Nobody wanted the ball
This is a squad that has built its identity on grinding out results in exactly these games. On Tuesday night there was nothing left. No pass, no clearance, no moment where a senior player took the ball and slowed the thing down.
Squad depth, conditioning, composure. Pick any of them. And this is the second play-off round in a row Celtic have lost, after Kairat Almaty last season.
O'Neill takes it on himself
"I'm responsible for this one, but I don't know what's happened in the past," Martin O'Neill said afterwards.
"Naturally it took me a long time to get over the UEFA Cup final in 2003, but this was majorly disappointing. In the context of things, one was a final which would have been terrific to win. This was a qualifying game which we should have been able to get through."
He added: "We know that we are a million miles from the finished article. That's absolutely true. I think we thought that anyway."
What happens now
Celtic drop into the Europa League and find out their opponents when the draw is made on Thursday 27 August. Domestically they are at home to Falkirk on Saturday at 15:00 BST, and the reception at Celtic Park will tell its own story.
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