Wednesday’s disaster still hurts. It will for a while.

It took until Saturday to even sit down and put this into words.

Sometimes you need time to let a result sink in before you can talk about it, and Wednesday night was one of those nights. Celtic are out of the Champions League after a goalless draw in Almaty and a penalty shootout defeat to Kairat. It was painful, it was cruel, and it was all too familiar.

From the first whistle, Celtic were on the front foot. Rodgers had his side pressing high, moving the ball with confidence, and forcing Kairat back towards their own box. McGregor kept things ticking in midfield, Tierney drove down the flank, and Maeda made himself busy in and around the penalty area.

The early signs were good. By the tenth minute Celtic looked sharper and hungrier, pushing hard for the opener. A couple of dangerous crosses flashed across goal, and the Kairat defence looked rattled.

But as the minutes ticked on, the same familiar story unfolded. Possession was there, control was there, but the final ball wasn’t. Half-chances were wasted, passes went astray, and whenever Celtic looked like breaking through, the chance fizzled out.

By the 25th minute, frustration was already mounting in the away end. Celtic should have been ahead. Instead, it was goalless, and the nerves began to creep in.

The half-time whistle blew with Celtic on top but with nothing to show for it. The tie remained balanced at 0-0 on aggregate.

The second half started the way the first had ended – Celtic dominant, Celtic pressing, Celtic creating. The Bhoys had more possession, more territory, and more efforts on goal, but still no breakthrough.

In the 52nd minute came the moment every fan thought would change the night. A thundering effort looked certain to find the net, but Kairat’s young goalkeeper Temirlan Anarbekov produced a brilliant block. It was the kind of stop that changes games, and Celtic would discover just how much it mattered.

The chances kept coming. Maeda worked tirelessly, we pushed and probed, and the midfield fed ball after ball forward. Yet the net refused to bulge.

By the 65th minute, the groans were louder than the cheers. The pattern was too familiar: Celtic wasteful, the opponent surviving, the clock ticking down.

When the final whistle went at 90 minutes, there was a sickening inevitability about it. Extra time. Thirty more minutes that Celtic never should have needed.

The Bhoys pushed again. In the 100th minute, we almost broke the deadlock. Ten minutes later, Maeda had the best chance of the game – clean through, one-on-one with the keeper – but couldn’t convert. Another chance gone. Another groan.

By the end of 120 minutes, it was written all over every face: penalties. That dreaded word.

What followed was agony. Celtic stepped up first, and when Idah’s penalty was saved, hearts sank. McCowan’s was also stopped, then Maeda’s.

Young Temirlan Anarbekov – just 21 years old – turned into Kairat’s hero. Three saves, all of them decisive, all of them breaking Celtic hearts.

Kairat scored three. Celtic scored only two. The Bhoys were out.

And that’s where the real pain comes in. Celtic weren’t second best in Almaty. They dominated the ball, created more chances, and dictated the pace of the game. But dominance without ruthlessness doesn’t win in Europe. At this level, it only takes one night of wastefulness to end your campaign.

For Rodgers, the anger was visible. He knows – and has said repeatedly – that this squad is not complete. That it needs finishers, that it needs reinforcements, that the lack of a killer instinct will cost us. Wednesday proved him right in the most brutal way possible.

For the fans, it has been another cycle of bitter disappointment. In the stadium in Kazakhstan, chants of “sack the board” rang out, echoing the frustrations of supporters everywhere. Not just about one night, but about years of repeated mistakes and failures on the European stage.

It took until Saturday for many of us to even talk about it. The silence wasn’t apathy – it was exhaustion. Celtic gave everything on the pitch, the fans gave everything off it, and still the outcome was heartbreak.

Celtic 0-0 Kairat (0-0 on aggregate, Kairat win 3-2 on penalties).

Celtic dominated but failed to finish. Kairat defended, survived, and took their moment when it came.

It is a cruel, cruel way to go out of the Champions League, but it is also a reminder. Europe does not forgive wastefulness. You can’t pass and press your way into the group stage; you need to score goals.

Rodgers knows it. The players know it. The fans know it. The question now is whether the Celtic board knows it – and whether they will finally act on it.