Rangers can expect ‘passionate Carlos Carvalhal against Braga – Glenn Loovens
Rangers travel to Portuguese outfit Braga tomorrow evening for the Europa League quarter-final with a spot in the last four in the crosshairs.
The Light Blues stunned the continent when they knocked Borussia Dortmund out in the playoff stage before easing past Serbian champions Red Star Belgrade to set up the clash with the Liga NOS side.
Braga are some way behind runaway league leaders Porto in their domestic division but their form in Europe has been good enough to get them to this stage of the competition.
Glenn Loovens played under Braga manager Carlos Carvalhal at Huddersfield and believes that his passion could carry them into the semi-finals at the Gers’ expense.
“Carlos has a whole team behind him to do the work on Rangers — and he knows Rangers anyway,” he said to the Scottish Sun.
“He knows the passionate side of football because he’s a passionate guy. He will have done all his homework on Rangers already.
“If Rangers had won on Sunday, people would be saying they were full of confidence going into the game on Thursday night.
“But it’s always a case of what happens on the day. It will be a close game this week as they’re both good teams. I’m looking forward to it.”
Blow them away
Whatever homework Carvalhal might have done in preparation for Thursday’s encounter will quickly be tossed out of the window if Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s men perform like they did in previous rounds.
The relentless running and clinical nature of their finishing sent shockwaves through Borussia Dortmund and they simply couldn’t recover after being thumped for four in their own backyard.
Do so again and Braga will find it even tougher than the Germans did to get back into the tie.
The big problem for van Bronckhorst though is the absence of leading scorer Alfredo Morelos, who bagged goals against Dortmund and Red Star in the knockout rounds.
Kemar Roofe looks set to take his place in the side as Rangers hope to quickly bounce back from their Old Firm derby defeat on Sunday with a memorable result in Portugal.
Rally the troops and give it your all, you’ve got our backing lads, let’s have it!
In other Rangers news, Morelos’ absence could see a return to the squad for this outcast who hasn’t played in two months.