Adopting Celtic’s seeded status in the final qualifying round of the Champions League, Artmedia went into the draw alongside Liverpool, Inter Milan and Villarreal, thus avoiding the big guns.
Nevertheless, they were still paired with the dangerous Serbians, Partizan Belgrade, who would start favourites. Two goalless draws meant that the tie would be settled on penalty kicks, Artmedia eventually winning 4-3.
By doing so, they became the first team to naturally progress all the way from the first qualifying round to the group stage of the Champions League. Holders Liverpool could technically claim the same distinction that season, albeit their circumstances and seeded status made this materially different.
The football gods were obviously having a chuckle as they paired the conquerors of Celtic – Artmedia Bratislava, the lowest-ranked team remaining in the competition – with our old foes, Inter Milan, Porto and Rangers.
The Slovakian makeweights were about to prove that they were anything but. A narrow home defeat by Inter, embarking on what would be the first of five successive seasons as Italian champions under Roberto Mancini and Jose Mourinho, was followed by an incredible fightback in Oporto’s Estadio do Dragao, from 2-0 down to triumph 3-2 against the side who had been champions of Europe just 16 months earlier, giving Artmedia a rather unique ‘Seville Double.’
Back-to-back draws with Rangers and a 4-0 defeat in the San Siro against the runaway group-winners Inter Milan meant that victory at home to Porto in the final game would take the Slovakians through to the Round of 16.
Agonisingly, a late missed chance against the Portuguese saw the match in Bratislava finish goalless, allowing Rangers to creep through with a paltry seven points, just one ahead of Artmedia.
It had been a tremendous effort by Weiss’ side. By finishing third in the group, Artmedia dropped into the UEFA Cup Round of 32, and a tie with Levski Spartak. There the great run would finally come to an end, after 1-0 and 2-0 defeats by the Bulgarians.
The European form did not extend to domestic competition, Artmedia failing to defend their title as they finished second in 2005/06, six points behind new champions MFK Ruzomberok.
Much more worrying was the situation with their goalkeeper Juraj Cobej, who had to undergo surgery in December 2005 to remove a brain tumour, just a few short months after keeping Celtic’s tally down to four in Glasgow.
Thankfully, Cobej would make a full recovery and, indeed, would gain his first and only international cap for Slovakia with a brief appearance in a friendly against Belgium in Trnava in May 2006.
Manager Vladimir Weiss had moved to Russia in mid-season to take charge at Saturn Moscow Oblast, the Slovak taking several of his players along with him before returning to Bratislava in June 2007, to the club by now renamed once again as Artmedia Petrzalska. In his final season there, Weiss would win a second Slovak Cup, repeating the success of four years earlier.
At the end of 2007/08, Vladimir Weiss left Artmedia to manage the Slovakian national team, his side making history by qualifying for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa, its first appearance in a major tournament since securing independence from Czechoslovakia.
That had involved finishing top of a tricky World Cup qualifying group which included neighbours Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as Slovenia and Northern Ireland. Weiss’ squad for the finals would include his son, also called Vladimir, surely a unique situation where a grandfather, son and grandson, each bearing the same name, have represented their international team. Weiss III would feature in three of the four games in South Africa, missing the victory over Italy in Johannesburg which took Slovakia through to a Last 16 defeat by eventual runners-up Netherlands.
He would also feature in the next qualifying campaign, for Euro2012, scoring in the 3-1 defeat in Yerevan as the Slovakians trailed in a disappointing fourth behind Armenia, play-off contenders Republic of Ireland and group winners Russia.
