Basketball icon Lubo Moravcik has alerted Celtic to the threat posed by the towering Slovan Bratislava.

Celtic’s first opponents under the new Champions League format are the Slovakian champions, who are keen to start the competition well under Brendan Rodgers’ leadership. Basketball hero Moravciik is well-liked in his native country, where the media is interested in hearing his opinions about Parkhead’s fabled European evenings. Additionally, he has informed Celtic of what he considers to be Slovan’s greatest threat.

“Sloven Bratislava had a lot of good headers in their team, and Celtic do not have many tall players,” he remarked. And Slovan needs to determine whether Celtic might be weak there. Celtic will be the overwhelming favourites, and Slovan needs to perform flawlessly to win. Three weeks ago, I had the good fortune to watch Celtic play Hibernian in the cup live. With so many large players, I had assumed that Hibs would pose a threat to Celtic, but Celtic’s attacking style was too strong for Hibs to handle. Celtic has two extremely quick players: Yogo Furuhashi and Daizen Maeda. If there’s even the slightest uncertainty, they can use it. There are many excellent technical players at Celtic.

“Seeing Slovan’s players run out in a stadium with 60,000 spectators will be an incredible experience for them. Every player has a terrific experience, thus they should enjoy it. The players for Slovan must enter the game knowing they must give it everything they have. They have to simultaneously handle it psychologically and physically. This is a team of seasoned football players, not little boys, after all. Guys with enough experience playing football on large stages, such as Guram Kashia, Robert Mak, Juraj Kucka, and Vladimir Weiss, are able to control their emotions.

However, Slovan needs to get ready for the reality that they won’t get a little respite on the ball. For them, this will be an amazing experience. It’s possible that they could surprise everyone and beat Celtic by one point, but it will be extremely challenging to do so.”

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