Crvena zvezda manager Vladan Milojevic has talked up Celtic and Brendan Rodgers ahead of their Europa League clash.
The two sides meet in the first league phase match tomorrow evening after both suffered surprise defeats to crash out of the Champions League at the play-off stage.
Milojevic is under no illusions about how good a side he is coming up against despite their struggles against Kairat Almaty. While he has huge respect for Rodgers after seeing him work in the Premier League for a long time.
Speaking at his press conference, the Serbian boss said: "I truly believe that Celtic is an exceptionally good team with a great coach who was working for a long time in the English Premier League.
"He’s a great strategist coach. A lot of journalists from Serbia were asking me about the favourites.
"There’s no favourites in football. It’s a game of inspiration, the moment, certain specific moments.
"On paper you write whatever you want but Celtic is a team that was made for participation in the Champions League.
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"It’s exceptionally dominant and strong. They are physical. They also have a lot of foreign players, so it will be an interesting game in any case."
Milojevic is reading absolutely nothing into that Kairat result, insisting Celtic are much the better team and should have progressed through that tie.
He added: "Those were the games that Celtic were favourites and have much better qualities.
"Celtic have better qualities than Kairat. They played those two games.
"I don’t want to say anything bad for the Kairat team but those were not right parameters.
"Celtic has a good team and as any team we’re aware that at this moment they also have certain issues.
"They are looking at tactics, their game as we are. At the beginning of the championship, we also have a lot of issues. But I think we’ll be well prepared for the game.”
