THE FK Zeta president, Radojica Bozovic, last night accused Red Star Belgrade of undermining his club by preparing for a final Champions League qualifier against Rangers.
THE FK Zeta president, Radojica Bozovic, last night accused Red Star Belgrade of undermining his club by preparing for a final Champions League qualifier against Rangers.
Bozovic believes comments made after Friday's draw in Nyon, Switzerland, were disrespectful to his side and have given Zeta even greater motivation to overturn a 2-0 deficit. "Since the draw they have said they are looking forward to facing Rangers," said Bozovic. "It will not deter us but to those comments I will say this: I look forward to facing Red Star Belgrade."
Walter Smith, the Rangers manager, stressed he will show the Montenegrins maximum respect after two mistakes from their rookie goalkeeper, Sasa Ivanovic, gave Rangers victory despite a less than convincing performance at Ibrox.
"All I can say is we have never looked beyond this game and any talk of who will play who in the next round has not come from within our club," said Smith.
Slobadon Halilodic, the Zeta manager, remains confident his team can reach the group stages having come back from 3-0 down against FB Kaunas in the second leg of their first qualifying round to win 5-4 on aggregate.
- Lee McCulloch, Nacho Novo and Carlos Cuellar will walk a suspension tightrope tonight.
The trio were yellow-carded in the first leg and a further booking would rule them out of the first leg in the next round should they qualify.
- The controversial Italian referee Paolo Dondarini will be in charge tonight. The 39-year-old was involved in the infamous Serie A match-fixing scandal last summer. He was originally suspended after allegations of match fixing but was later aquitted on appeal.
