Maribor skipper Tavares has declared himself very happy with the 1-1 draw against Celtic.
Ronny Deila’s side were stronger in every area after Callum McGregor opened the scoring in the sixth minute but had to settle for a score draw.
With home advantage Celtic will be firm favourites to reach the group stage of the Champions League but Tavares is confident that Maribor can pull off an upset.
“I’m very satisfied, very happy,” the Brazilian striker told uefa.com. “We played a home game against Celtic, a big team make no mistake, and it ended 1-1. We had a lot of chances to win, to score the second goal, but 1-1 for the first game was a good result.
“We have a big opportunity to go through to the group phase. It was very important to equalise quickly after failing behind – we couldn’t give them too much time to settle into the game. We played very well. We played offensively and we tried everything to score a goal. We showed that we have the quality to go through.
“Now on to Glasgow. We always play well in the away games, we score away goals. We have a big chance, a big opportunity to score in Glasgow. We’ll do everything to win.”
Tavares# confidence was matched by his manager Ante Simundza who played in the Maribor side that reached the group stage of the Champions League in 1999.
“We still are in the tie,” Simundza declared. “In the first half Celtic had more of the game, but in the second half we were better, we created more chances. At the end both teams must be satisfied with the draw.
“Celtic got into situations in which we didn’t want to see them, especially with high balls into the penalty area where they always had four or five tall players. We have to work on those kind of situations before the second leg. I didn’t want to make substitutions earlier because Celtic can switch quickly to the counterattack.
“Our forwards were not on the ball enough tonight, their goalkeeper was great. We aren’t at our most clinical but we are still improving. The 1-1 scoreline gives a slight advantage to Celtic but we are always looking to score a goal, so we have to go to Glasgow to unpick their defence at least once. We are known as a team who score quite a lot of goals away from home.”
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