Hearts goalkeeper Antti Niemi said last night that he felt Celtic would be too strong for his home-town club HJK Helsinki provided they treated the Finnish side with respect.
Niemi spent five years playing in goal for the club and still has close contacts with the team and its players. He singled out former Russian Under-21 captain Alexei Jeremenko as the danger man for Celtic and also revealed that, like the Parkhead club, they have a Brazilian called Rafael playing for them.
Helsinki's Rafael is a young striker and Niemi believes he is an exciting player who has a great future.
''It is an exciting draw for Helsinki,'' said Niemi. ''However, I don't see them beating Celtic and the only way they will have a chance is if Celtic under-estimate them. I played with Helsinki for five years before I left for FC Copenhagen and they are definitely not a bad team, but I still think Celtic will win.
''Helsinki usually get around 10,000 fans and their playmaker just now is Jeremenko, who has been a standout in the Finnish league for years. Although he is 34 now he is very fit and is dangerous at free-kicks and corners.
''Certainly playing in Europe will not be a novelty for Helsinki as they have played in the Champions League before when they beat Benfica.''
Parkhead manager Martin O'Neill said: ''I know very little about the Finnish side, but their football has been getting better all the time and I will be going out to see them.''
Meanwhile, Hearts are banking on a lucrative pay-day from their UEFA Cup tie against VfB Stutggart next month. Coach Jim Jefferies admitted that his side had been given a tough task against the German side: ''We knew we were in a tough section and we have ended up drawing one of the bigger clubs, but we have done well against teams like Red Star Belgrade and Real Mallorca in recent years and feel we will do well.
Jefferies was last night trawling the Internet to check VfB Stuggart's fixtures and is hoping to go and see them today and be back in time for his side's game against Dundee tomorrow.
The Hearts coach said he would relish the chance to manage a team against German opposition, and he also has the heartening memory that as a player back in 1976 he was a substitute in a famous evening at Tynecastle, when the Edinburgh club beat Locomotiv Leipzig 5-1 after losing the first leg by 2-0 in East Germany.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article