No twin loyalties for Twardzik when compatriots come to visit

Sports Writer

Wednesday 31 August 2011

FILIP TWARDZIK and his twin brother Patrik have acclimatised well in the two years since they arrived in Scotland, but there will be no room for divided loyalties come Saturday afternoon.

Custom byline text:

stewart fisher

Celtic’s Czech teenagers are currently part of their country’s under-19 squad and Filip feels confident that Michal Bilek’s senior side can shrug off the injury crisis which deprives them of key men Petr Cech, Tomas Necid and Jan Polak for the meeting at Hampden and secure the win which would all but seal a play-off place from Euro 2012 qualifying Group I.

“We don’t have a game with Celtic’s under-19 side at the weekend so I will probably watch the game on TV,” Filip Twardzik said. “I hope the Czech Republic will win -- I have to stay with them, that is my nationality. The Czech Republic team know they could kill off Scotland in the group, but they will approach the game the same way that they do any game; they will try to do their best for their country.“We haven’t heard so much about the national team since 2004 but they are starting to come back now. Petr Cech is injured so we might have to blood some new players, but Jaroslav Drobny [the Hamburg goalkeeper, and Cech’s likely replacement] is not bad either.”In the absence of his injured regulars, Bilek has called up no fewer than four members of the Viktoria Plzen side who have come from nowhere to take a place in the group stages of the Champions League -- significantly more, of course, than any Scottish club side managed this season. “Normal Czech clubs like Sparta Prague aren’t the same level as Celtic and Rangers,” he said. “I am very surprised that a team like Viktoria Plzen are in the Champions League and Celtic and Rangers aren’t. I was surprised that they won the league in the first place because they have been nearly relegated in the last few years.”Twardzik is part of the under-19 squad which will take on Barcelona in the NextGen Series at Celtic Park tonight, but he still has designs on making it into Neil Lennon’s first team at some point this season.This is despite the club’s apparent pursuit of a new left-back, and a heartbreaking cameo in a pre-season friendly against Wolverhampton Wanderers in July which saw him come on only to blot his copy book by scoring an unfortunate own goal.“It is just bad luck that a young guy comes on and scores an own goal, but every player scores an own goal from time to time and you have to get on with it,” he said. “Neil Lennon spoke to me about it afterwards, he said he almost scored two own goals in one game. So we had a laugh about it.”

Commenting & Moderation

We moderate all comments on HeraldScotland on either a pre-moderated or post-moderated basis. If you're a relatively new user then your comments will be reviewed before publication and if we know you well then your comments will be subject to moderation only if other users or the moderators believe you've broken the rules, which are available here.

Moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours. Please be patient if your posts are not approved instantly.

No twin loyalties for Twardzik when compatriots come to visit

Commenting & Moderation

MOST READ

SPONSORED LINKS

MOST COMMENTED