JURAJ HALENAR was the golden boy of Slovakian football who scored a stunning hat-trick against Celtic — then tragically took his own life at 35.
And as the Hoops face Bratislavan opposition for the first time since that 5-0 humiliation to Artmedia in 2005, his team-mate that night, Branislav Fodrek, has revisited one of the Champions League’s saddest tales for SunSport.
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Halenar was the all-time leading scorer in his nation’s top division — a record he STILL holds — but in June 2018 he made the lonely walk into the Vrakun Forest outside Bratislava and killed himself.
The news stunned Slovak football.
Fodrek, who played in both legs of a momentous 5-4 aggregate win over Gordon Strachan’s Hoops, admits his team-mates were left reeling.
He said: “Juraj was a top player in Slovakia. He was an international and played for all three Bratislava clubs — Inter, Artmedia and Slovan. He scored more than 100 goals for them.
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“But what happened to him shows you can never know what is going on in someone’s life.
“It was so sad, a terrible shock to us all.
“Juraj was a great player and a good guy.
“The Celtic game was probably his best moment for Artmedia.
“We played a Kazakh team, Kairat, the previous round and lost the first leg 2-0. We needed extra-time to go through against them in the return.
“Celtic were then big opponents for us, but our ambition was to put in a good performance for our club and Slovak football. But it ended up a result you get once in 100 years!
“When I think back, maybe they thought we were a small club. We did have some luck on the night because Celtic missed good chances.
“But Juraj was great and we scored good goals.
“People must remember we also weren’t playing on our own pitch. Our ground didn’t have a Uefa certificate so we played at Slovan’s stadium.
“After the game we felt confident, but even at 5-0 we knew the tie wasn’t finished. We expected a big reaction from Celtic in Glasgow.
“And it came but we defended well and though the last ten minutes, after they scored their fourth, were busy, we held out.
“I know the result was a shock, but it’s unfair for people to think we weren’t a good team. We beat Partizan Belgrade to reach the Champions League group stages. And then we went to Porto and won there.
“We played Rangers twice in the group too and drew twice, so it was nice to go back to Glasgow!”
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