Dan Brennan: Velicka comes full circle on Romanov's merry-go-round

THANKS TO Vladimir Romanov's ongoing crusade against the Old Firm, a clash between his Lithuanian club Kaunas and Rangers already comes laden with subtext. The presence in the enemy ranks of one his former protégés will make it even spicier. News that Andrius Velicka – a rare victory for his policy of peppering the Hearts squad with Lithuanian imports – had resurfaced at Rangers less than six months after leaving Tynecastle is likely to have been received by the Hearts owner as an act of di

Viking Stavanger, by contrast, are understood to be relieved to have offloaded him back to Scotland without losing money on the deal. The feeling in Norway was that he was not quite the performer they hoped for when they paid Hearts £1m for him earlier this year.

But Kaunas-born Velicka remains a hero at his home town club, having enjoyed the most prolific period of his career in his six years there, with 89 goals in 166 games after turning professional as a teenager in 1996.

The 29-year-old Lithuania internationalist may be a forward of limited virtues, but one thing he did show consistently in Scotland is that he is a big-game performer, who consistently discovered his scoring form in encounters with the Old Firm. By the same logic, he will need no extra motivation to do well against his alma mater this week.

Romanov has pulled off a coup this month with the appointment of Jose Couceiro as Kaunas' latest head coach. The Portuguese is, without a doubt, the highest profile coach to be lured to Lithuania. However, he is inheriting, arguably, the patchiest Kaunas team in several seasons. And he was unimpressed at what he saw during his first game in charge. After 15 games they sit top of the table, with nine wins, four draws and two defeats, but the manner of their recent performances has been less than convincing. In April they lost back-to-back games, and if third-placed Ekranes win two of their three games in hand, they will be overtaken.

Thanks to Romanov's latest shuffling of the pack within his football empire, the Lithuanians have recently been deprived of three senior performers – Georgian Givi Khvartselia, Bosnian full-back, Edin Pehlic, once talked up for a move to Tynecastle, and Bulgarian defender Yanko Valkanov – all of whom have been dispatched to the Belarusian corner of the Romanov triangle, MTZ Ripo. Kaunas have replenished the ranks by drafting in a couple of players from Atlantas – a club sponsored by none other than Ukio Bankas – Serbian forward Bojan Mamic and defender Marius Soblinskis. They have also recalled another striker, Nerijus Valskis, from Sivute – whose entire team are on loan from Kaunas.

None of these three are likely to start against Rangers. There should though be room for a couple of familiar faces. Centre back Tomas Kancelskis, out injured for a long period, has returned to the team, though he has lost the captaincy to Radijus. And then there is fellow Hearts returnee Linas Pilibaitis. Those who witnessed his ineffectual displays at Tynecastle will be surprised to learn that the midfielder has been one of Kaunas' most consistent performers this season. Over the two legs against Andorran side FC Santa Coloma in the previous qualifier, he contributed four goals to the 7-2 aggregate win. There is a feeling among regular observers that, having gone abroad too soon, he is now coming of age back home.

One Hearts reject who will not be on show is the hapless Ricardas Beniusis. It seems that the forward, once the star striker at Kaunas, never recovered from his ill-starred spell at Tynecastle, and having returned home was swiftly dispatched on loan to Metallurgs Leipaja.

Kaunas tend to play 3-5-2 in domestic fixtures. This is Romanov's favourite formation, probably influenced by the preferences of his old football Svengali, Eduard Malofeev. However against Rangers, barring a radical shake-up by new Couceiro, they are most likely to opt for a variation of 4-5-1.

The task of leading the line against Rangers will almost certainly fall to Mindaugas Grigalevicius, currently the Lithuanian league's top scorer with 15 goals. The real danger man, however, will be the player lurking behind him in the 'shadow striker' role. Brazilian Rafael Ledesma scored twice in the first game against Coloma, but was left out for the second because of a muscle strain.

"There are a fair few Brazilians coming to this part of the world now, but the pick of the bunch is Ledesma," says Paul Ashworth, the Englishman in charge of Skonto Riga, who is a long-term resident in the Baltics. "He's a typically skilful Latin American player, with lots of pace – very exciting to watch."

Hearts new boss Laszlo Csaba will be paying close attention. Romanov has apparently just informed him that he will have carte blanche to bring any player from Kaunas to Scotland at a moment's notice.