John Carver has warned Rangers that they will face a cauldron of noise at the Miejski Stadium on Thursday night, but believes they have the quality to progress in the Europa League.
The former Scotland assistant coach, who spent 18 months as manager of Lechia Gdansk, faced Jagiellonia Bialystok three times and knows the Polish side well.
Carver, who beat Jagiellonia twice with Lechia, including a 3-0 victory last season, says Rangers will need cast-iron resilience and a strong mentality to cope with the atmosphere.
Hostile crowd and flare-show expected
“It’s an intimidating place to go. Listen, I’m sure Rangers players will have experienced something similar previously in Europe,” Carver told Record Sport.
“But let me tell you, it’s a very hostile crowd. There will be a flare-show and they’ll have their big banners up. The stadium will be full and loud, so it won’t be easy. Rangers will have to deal with that.”
“But it will be a hard place to go for Rangers with an incredible atmosphere. And this will be a different type of pressure for these Rangers players. We’ll find out on Thursday night if they can stand up to it or not.”
Carver compared the atmosphere to that of other top Polish clubs, saying: “The likes of Jagiellonia, Legia Warsaw and Lech Poznan - when you go to their stadiums you need to have a special type of personality to cope with it. That will be the case on Thursday. It will be a real early test for Derek’s team.”
Jagiellonia's strengths and weaknesses
Carver noted that Jagiellonia have lost their main striker, Afimico Pululu, who left this summer, but warned of other threats.
“They’re a really good footballing team who want to play out from the back. They’ve got technical players with a mix of young and experienced players,” he said.
“They’ve just lost their main striker, Pululu and he was their main man. But they definitely have other threats, notably the Spanish boy Jesus Imaz. He’s a really good player who will play behind a main striker which could be the Belgian, Youssef Sylla, Dimitris Wallis from Greece or Nik Prelec from Slovenia.”
Carver also highlighted the attacking full-backs Norbert Wojtuszek and Guilherme Montoia, and centre-halves Bernardo Vital and Yuki Kobayashi, who was at Celtic.
Rangers must not underestimate Poles
Rangers have only played one Premiership game before the tie, a 1-1 draw at Tannadice against Dundee United, while Jagiellonia have won both their Ekstraklasa matches.
Carver believes that extra game could give the Poles an advantage, but he still expects Rangers to go through.
“Jagiellonia have been back longer than Rangers. That one extra game they’ve had could really help them,” he said.
“I think you still have to have Rangers as favourites and expect them to go through. When you look at what Rangers are, you have to. But what I’d say is, don’t be surprised by the opposition. People don’t rate Polish football but last season in Europe, Lech Poznan went a long way, Jagiellonia, Legia Warsaw and Krakow did too. So don’t take them for granted.”
