He is arguably as much remembered for the crunching tackle that he put in on Rangers forward Kenny Miller in an Old Firm clash as he is for being part of Brendan Rodgers’ ‘Invicibles’ team, and when he caught up with the Scottish press this week, Jozo Simunovic predicted further pain would soon be inflicted upon the Ibrox side.
The former Celtic defender, now a youth coach with Dinamo Zagreb, was impressed by his old team as he watched them on Champions League duty on Tuesday night, and he was relieved that the match ended in a stalemate, given his split loyalties.
There are no such dilemmas about where his allegiances lie ahead of Sunday’s League Cup final though, and he is sure that the current Celtic team will emerge victorious once more, because they remind him of the flawless outfit he himself was a part of.
“I think they will win,” Simunovic said.
“If they will play the way they did in Zagreb and in the last couple of months.
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“Look, Celtic sets the standard, so they just need to keep going.
“It reminds of the Celtic when I used to be there and we used to play, especially that season when we were unbeaten, so I am looking forward to it.
“Of course, against Rangers is always a tough game, but I really do trust these guys and this group.”
Whether this Celtic team can emulate the class of 2016/17 and go the entire season unbeaten domestically remains to be seen, and is harder for Simunovic to predict.
“It is hard [to compare teams],” he said.
“It is many years gone already, so some things have changed as well. The structure of the play has also changed, so it hard to compare.
“Of course, it is always hard to play away games, it is not the same [as Celtic Park] in terms of atmosphere with the fans and everything.
“But, at the end of the day, a point each [in Zagreb] was well deserved.”
Simunovic is confident that he will also be celebrating Champions League progression for Celtic in the weeks ahead.
"With this new format, it works really well," he said.
"So many teams and so many games. Hopefully, that’s definitely what Celtic likes.
“But also, we can say format and blah, blah, but the team is also in good shape, it is looking good, playing good, so that’s the most important part of all."
