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Carlos Carvalhal insists his brave Braga troops have nothing to fear from an electric Ibrox on Thursday night.
The Portuguese outfit will look to finish off Rangers and march into the Europa League semi-finals after claiming a one-goal lead at the Estadio Municipal last week.
Under-pressure Gers boss Gio van Bronckhorst has responded by calling on the Light Blues support to crank up the noise levels in the hope a red-hot atmosphere will inspire his side to a repeat of their heroics against Borussia Dortmund and Red Star Belgrade.
Confident Carvalhal, however, insists his side can handle the heat in Glasgow having stood firm on their travels against domestic giants Benfica, Porto and Sporting Lisbon.
Asked if the Ibrox faithful would give his side cause for concern, the former Swansea and Sheffield Wednesday boss shot back: “It is a positive. It is something that gives us a big motivation.
“We like the fantastic environment.
“Since we arrived in Braga, we have won in Benfica’s stadium, Sporting’s stadium, Porto’s stadium – we are talking about 50,000 or 60,000 fans in each and we won there.
“So it is something that we like.
“Congratulations to the Braga fans and Glasgow Rangers fans last week, it was an amazing atmosphere in the stadium and it was something that we like, we enjoy and we are looking forward to the game on Thursday.
“We will not only defend when we go to Glasgow.
“We’re a team that plays all the time to try to win.
“We’ll show a big respect to Glasgow Rangers because they really are a very good team, a strong team – but we will try to win because we try to win all the games.”
Carvalhal was tasked with bringing down the average age of his veteran squad when he returned to his hometown club two years ago.
One of his first acts was to make the loan capture of Barcelona striker Abel Ruiz a permanent affair and the 22-year-old repaid his manager’s faith by firing the only goal in last week’s first-leg win in Portugal.
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His team also included Liverpool-linked midfielder David Carmo and Brazilian defender Fabiano, both 22, as well as 18-year-old wonderkid Rodrigo Gomes.
But Carvalhal reckons his young guns can overcome the frenzied atmosphere awaiting them tomorrow night to fire the Arsenalists into a last four shoot out with the winner of the RB Leipzig-Atalanta clash.
“These boys have been growing since the beginning of the season,” insisted Carvalhal. “Most of them have 15 games, 20 games, they have more experience.
“Some of them in the youth team at national level, they have this type of profile but I am absolutely sure we will play with personality and we will play without any kind of fear.
“But we know it will be difficult, this we are sure about.
(Image: Getty)
“But afraid, no.
“We will turn the environment and try to make it positive to us. We’ll use it like a motivation because we understand these kind of games are not a threat but an opportunity.
“This is an opportunity and we don’t have too many opportunities to do this kind of game, during the season we have two or three games like that.
“We have fought a lot to be here in this moment so let’s enjoy it and do our best and give the maximum to try to go to the semi-finals.
“Everything is open, 50/50, we will see.”
