The voice you would hear inside Ibrox on Thursday evening would be Lukas Vala's.

Slavia Prague's head of fans' chants have bellowed from his megaphone at home matches in Sinobo Stadium over a 13 year period of the leading supporter. And, had Covid not ruined his chances of making it to Glasgow, he would have generated the same incredible atmosphere inside the Ibrox cauldron during their Europa League last-16 second-leg clash.

Vala - known locally to supporters as Strasak - will have to make do with watching the game on TV like the rest of us, but if his side play as they did last week in front of 300 fans, he reckons they have a good chance to squeeze through to the quarter-finals against an organised Gers outfit.

"It was a very tough game for us," he said. "I was personally in the stadium so I enjoyed it very much in this situation with Covid. I think we were a little bit better but it was tough to score, Rangers have great defenders. They looked organised, so it was a very tough game."

Vala is not expecting anything different in the second-leg, though. However he hopes the Light Blues will struggle without their usual 50,000 capacity crowd backing them.

It's not news to him that neither side will have their supporters inside the ground. Or enjoying a boozy week leading up to the action. He just hopes that will affect Steven Gerrard's men more.

"Not being able to get to the football and inside the stadiums is a very sad part of our lives right now but, of course, every life has changed in every aspect, so it's only one small piece of changing life. It's such a long time since we we've been able to go to the stadiums and a lot of people have forgotten what it's like.

"We should be somewhere in the pub in Glasgow now, drinking beers with mates. Enjoying before the match, then during and after. We should be there. It's a big change and a big pain in the a***.

"I've never been in Glasgow before. My friends have been in Scotland many times and I've been told it's an amazing city in an amazing country. I'd like to go and that's one of the saddest things about not going, in the past 20 years I've been to most away matches so it's sad to not be there.

"We've been very successful in Europe and in the league this season. Rangers will give us a very tough game as they did in Prague. The power of our team and the strength, I hope, will see us pass through.

"Maybe we'll have an advantage with Rangers not having their fans inside the stadium. That could be an advantage for us and I think we have a great chance to get through."

Vala can boast having been to countless countries, numerous stadiums and having seen a variety of different European opponents in following Slavia. Hamburg, Chelsea, Bucharest, Ajax, Borussia Dortmund are just a handful of clubs he namedrops during our chat. He just wishes he could add Gers to the list.

"Doing this so many years there's been so many good experiences," he went on. "One of the best, our club has historical connections with Hajduk Split and their 100th year anniversary, we enjoyed friendly relationship with both sets of supporters. This is one of my best experiences, there were 35,000 fans in the stadium, 150,000 in the city and the whole place celebrated. Half the city were celebrating in the town centre, there was a big concert, it had everything. There have been so many.

"My 20 years have been filled with incredible away matches in Europe, so I'm very sad we cannot continue right now. Maybe next season we'll be back in the stadiums to support our club."