All about the next opponent: interview with Slovan Bratislava podcast My sme Belasí

The second to last match in the league pha­se of the Cham­pi­ons Leage sees VfB return to Bra­tis­la­va after four­teen and a half years. We tal­ked to Slo­van pod­cast My sme Bela­sí about the cur­rent situa­ti­on of the Slo­wa­ki­an title hol­der and record cham­pi­on.

With the Red Stri­pe: Hel­lo and thank you for taking your time to ans­wer our ques­ti­ons. Could you first intro­du­ce yours­elf to our rea­ders?

My sme Bela­sí: Hel­lo, we are the first-ever pod­cast dedi­ca­ted to our bel­oved club ŠK Slo­van Bra­tis­la­va, and for the third sea­son now, we’ve been crea­ting pod­casts about ever­y­thing rela­ted to Slo­van.

This sea­son, Slo­van rea­ched the group or league stage of the Cham­pi­ons League for the first time. How important was that for the club and the fans?

This is the grea­test suc­cess in the club’s modern histo­ry (sin­ce the move to the new sta­di­um), and for years, it was a shared dream for all Slo­van fans. So, it was abso­lu­te euphoria—a dream come true for fans and ever­yo­ne in club.

Are you dis­ap­poin­ted about the results in the Cham­pi­ons League so far while being on cour­se to ano­ther Slo­wa­ki­an cham­pi­on­ship at the moment?

Honest­ly, no, we expec­ted it. Of cour­se, ever­yo­ne wants to see their club win, but we’re play­ing in the Cham­pi­ons League for the first time, so when you look at the qua­li­ty of the squad and the lack of expe­ri­ence, it makes sen­se. The club is sim­ply adap­ting to some­thing unfa­mi­li­ar. The posi­ti­ve thing, howe­ver, is that the per­for­man­ces are con­ti­nuous­ly impro­ving.

The Niké Liga does­n’t start again until Febru­ary, while Stutt­gart has alre­a­dy play­ed three games. Do you think this is an advan­ta­ge or a  dis­ad­van­ta­ge for Slo­van?

It’s defi­ni­te­ly an advan­ta­ge. We have an older squad, so a shorter break was bene­fi­ci­al. The play­ers got some rest, and on the other hand, they had a very high-qua­li­ty trai­ning camp, so match rea­di­ness should be fine.

When we were thra­s­hed in Bel­gra­de, we could see that it is not easy to play a team that is used to win­ning in the league and has not­hing to lose inter­na­tio­nal­ly. Are the situa­tions of Slo­van and Cvre­na zvez­da com­pa­ra­ble?

The­se com­pa­ri­sons can be quite exten­si­ve. They might hint at some­thing, but we don’t think it’s the most important fac­tor working in Slovan’s favor.

The two clubs met befo­re in 2010 in the qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on for the Euro­pa League, overs­ha­dowed by clas­hes bet­ween the fans in the first leg. Do you have any recoll­ec­tions of the­se games?

Honest­ly, it’s been so long that we haven’t even thought about it.

Do you expect any reac­tions from the Slo­van fan sce­ne regar­ding the game at the Pasi­en­ky back then or is that most­ly for­got­ten?

We don’t think the­re will be any­thing direct­ly aimed at this, but we do expect some ten­si­on sin­ce both clubs have good and emo­tio­nal ultras sup­port­ers.

Back to the pre­sence: Slo­van only lost nar­row­ly 2–3 against Milan. What work­ed well for Slo­van in this game?

The big­gest advan­ta­ges work­ed. Emo­ti­on, team spi­rit, and team per­for­mance. Com­bi­ned with the fans, the play­ers can push them­sel­ves into an incre­di­ble trance and deli­ver excel­lent matches even against signi­fi­cant­ly stron­ger oppon­ents. It’s a sta­te whe­re the fans and espe­ci­al­ly the play­ers give 200%, fight­ing not for them­sel­ves but for ever­yo­ne. Against AC, we were in such a trance, and we weren’t far from a mira­cle.

What’s the style of play of Slo­van in the Cham­pi­ons League and whe­re do you see your team’s strengths and weak­ne­s­ses?

Most of the time, we try to play from a solid defen­se and use dead­ly coun­ter­at­tacks. Our big­gest weak­ne­ss is sim­ply the inex­pe­ri­ence of the play­ers at this level and occa­sio­nal unneces­sa­ry indi­vi­du­al mista­kes. Our strengths are defi­ni­te­ly coun­ter­at­tacks. We have many play­ers with bril­li­ant foot­ball IQ and pas­sing skills, and we must men­ti­on our goal­kee­per, who can do mira­cles on the line.

Which play­er should we look out for?

It’s very hard to pick just one, but the most inte­res­t­ing per­so­na­li­ty and play­er is undoub­ted­ly our cap­tain, Vlad­ko Weiss Jr.

For Stutt­gart fans visi­ting Bra­tis­la­va, is the­re any­thing you would recom­mend they should see?

The city cen­ter is beau­tiful. We defi­ni­te­ly recom­mend visi­ting Bra­tis­la­va Cast­le or the area around the Danu­be. But for as, as a Slo­van fan, the most beau­tiful place is Tehe­l­né pole, logi­cal­ly.

What is your guess for the start­ing ele­ven of Slo­van and the result?

This is very dif­fi­cult becau­se we regu­lar­ly alter­na­te bet­ween two play­ing sys­tems. Howe­ver, we’ll take a guess at a 3–4‑3:

Takáč – Bajrić – Kas­hia – Wim­mer
Black­man – Sav­vi­dis – Igna­ten­ko (if ful­ly fit) – Med­ve­dev
Bar­seg­hyan – Strelec – Weiss

And the result… well, we want to stay posi­ti­ve, so we’ll say 1–1. We’re impro­ving, and the play­ers are get­ting bet­ter, so why not sur­pri­se?

Pic­tu­re: © Chris­ti­an Hofer/Getty Images

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