What can we expect from our opponents in the first Champions League match this season? We asked Titanilla Bod from Slovakia’s main sports newspaper Sportnet…
So, Slovan made it to the main round of the Champions League for the first time in the history of the club. When coach Vladimír Weiss returned to the “Brickfield” (this is the nickname of the stadium of Slovan) in the summer of 2021, he said he was dreaming about hosting big clubs such as Real Madrid or Barcelona one day. Qualifying for the main round he basically reached this goal.
Slovan will play Celtic, Girona, Atlético Madrid and Bayern Munich away and Manchester City, Dinamo Zagreb, AC Milan and Stuttgart at home. There are huge expectations, which shows that Slovan sold all the season tickets, as those meant priority when buying tickets for the Champions League. In the past Slovan had between 1500 – 1800 season ticket holders but after qualifying for the Champions League they sold out all the 12,500 season tickets.
However, in Slovakia many football fans still go to see “the opponent” and not their own team. This is obvious also during national team games. When Slovakia played Portugal last year, people went crazy to get tickets just to see Cristiano Ronaldo in action.
Of course, everybody knows Slovan is not the favourite in probably any of the matches. People see most chances to get a point or three against Dinamo Zagreb and Stuttgart. As for away games, I think people still remember the times when Artmedia Petržalka qualified through Celtic Glasgow after two crazy games, so I think there is some hope that such a surprise might happen again. Even though away games are always harder because you have the whole stadium against you.
I think Slovan has the strongest team in the last few years which is physically and mentally resilient. You could see it in the play offs against Midtjylland. Even though Slovan was 1-2 down at home after a draw in Denmark, they went for the second goal and when they scored, they kept on going and in the end they scored the third goal and won 3-2. One or two years ago after the egalizing goal they would have waited for the extra time and maybe penalties, but now they wanted to finish the game as soon as possible.
The squad is a bit old, Juraj Kucka is 37 years old, Guram Kashia also 37, Vladimír Weiss jr. (the son of the coach and an enfant terrible who is always at risk of a red card) 34, Róbert Mak (who returned to his first club after career abroad) is 33, one of the key players who can score decisive goals Tigran Barseghyan is 30.
However, they have young forward David Strelec (23) who is getting better and better also in the national team, or new signing Idjessi Metsoko (22) or great talent with killer instinct Nino Marcelli (19). So basically it can be a good mixture of experienced and younger players.
As for the game itself, I think Slovan won’t go for a risk at the beginning, but if they manage to keep it 0-0 in the first half, they would be more offensive in the second half, trying to win the game.
Celtic is seen in Slovakia as a club with history and tradition, but I don’t think people know much about the current squad. Lot of people know about Jozef Vengloš, Ľubomír Moravčík and Stanislav Varga being there, but I think they don’t follow the team closely now. But as I mentioned before, people remember the matches against Artmedia, which was probably a shock for Artmedia fans themselves.
Maybe it is also an interesting information for your that Juraj Halenár, the player who scored a hattrick against Celtic, committed suicide in 2018 at the age of 35. Rumors say that he had debts and financial issues.
ntvcelticfanzine.com 