Danes down in the dumps after dreadful defeat
Former Everton and Sunderland star, Bryan Oviedo, admits he’ll find it hard to gun down Celtic this week because the FC Copenhagen midfielder supports the club.
The Danes suffered a shock defeat on Friday in their last game before they face the Hoops in the Last 32 of the Europa League, when they crashed to a 1-0 loss at relegationhaunted Esbjerg.
Stale Solbakken’s side looked rusty on their return from a two-month winter break – and could have lost by more, with the hosts missing a penalty and hitting the bar.
Costa Rican ace Oviedo knows his colleagues will need to massively raise their game when they welcome Neil Lennon’s men to the Parken Stadium on Thursday.
And the tie will be special for the 29-yearold because he used to follow Celtic when international colleague, Cristian Gamboa, was on the Glasgow giants’ books.
He said: “Celtic are a really good team. In fact, I used to support them when Cristian played for them.
“When I was playing in English football, I would always catch their games on TV.
“Cristian started well at Celtic but, for whatever reason, he didn’t get as many games as he would have wanted and had to leave. So it was a hard time for him.
“But when I spoke to him he never had a bad word to say about Celtic and told me what a fantastic club they are, with a great support.
“He told me their fans were the best in Europe.
“I never got the chance to watch him live, although he was always inviting me up.”
On Friday’s evidence, it’s hard to see the Danes living with a resurgent Celtic side, who have been in terrific form.
Copenhagen were very vulnerable at setpieces and their wingers were ineffective in creating chances for a disheartened Dame N’Dioye, their top scorer.
And the 52-times capped ace knows they will need to improve for the visit of the Hoops.
He said: “We need to pick ourselves up as soon as possible because Thursday is a really important game for us.
“We have to be 100% mentally and physically to compete with a team like Celtic.
“It’s important we get a lead in the first leg.
“Of course it will be a very hard game for us, but it’s so vital that we are able to take a lead back to Glasgow for the second leg.
“We have to be clever. We know Celtic are in good form and scoring a lot of goals, so our first aim is to keep a clean sheet and not concede because we all know what awaits us in the second leg in Scotland.”