Old Firm Doing Scottish Football Proud
by Administrator on February 24th, 2007
| 502 words |
Craig continues our Scottish Premiership coverage with a bit of applause for the Old Firm on their European tour.
Rangers and Celtic were both in European action this week – and both were successful in different ways.
In the Champions’ League, Celtic managed to hold AC Milan to a 0-0 draw at Celtic Park, despite being outplayed for the majority of the game. 38 year-old Paolo Maldini was making his 100th Champions’ League appearance and strolled the game, hardly giving Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink a look-in all night. Former Rangers midfielder Rino Gattuso was booed at every opportunity as expected but put in one of his usual dominant performances. At the other end of the field, Kaka was sublime and 20 year-old Yoann Gourcuff – dubbed the new Zidane – showed flashes of brilliance. However 20 year-old Darren O’Dea, in for the cup-tied Steven Pressley was impressive at the back for Celtic, albeit aided by the profligacy of Alberto Gilardino. Celtic’s had a couple of chances - Lee Naylor curled a 25 yard effort just wide while Shunsuke Nakamura had a couple of free-kicks in dangerous positions which he uncharacteristically failed to convert. Although the result was reasonable, it looks extremely difficult for Celtic to progress now, especially given their shocking away record in the competition – 11 defeats and one draw in 12 matches.
Rangers took on Hapoel Tel-Aviv in the UEFA Cup, after losing a fractious 1st leg 2-1 in Israel. However, Rangers were on top for most of that match, and dominated this one even more, with Hapoel barely threating Rangers’ goal. Barry Ferguson gave Rangers the lead midway through the first half, and a few minutes later the prolific Kris Boyd scored as he always does to make it 2-0. After half-time skipper Barry Ferguson scored his second, but while his team-mates were celebrating, Rangers keeper Alan McGregor was sent off, apparently for violent conduct. Although TV pictures didn’t seem to show anything untoward, the referee claimed that McGregor head-butted a Hapoel player. But even their opponents being reduced to 10 men didn’t prompt the Israelis to try to attack, and substitute keeper Stefan Klos might as well have stayed on the bench. In the 90th minute, Charlie Adam came on as a substitute and instantly found a goal to complete a 4-0 rout. Although Barry Ferguson grabbed 2 goals, Chris Burke was most impressive, mesmerising Hapoel with some excellent dribbling and for once providing the final ball which so often lets him down. The Gers will face Osasuna in the last-16 in what is likely to be a tough tie, but they will feel that they could beat any of the teams left in the competition.
More importantly for Scottish football, the Rangers line-up had 9 Scots, with Nacho Novo and Brahim Hemdani the only foreigners in the side. This is a far cry from the days of Dick Advocaat, when they routinely fielded sides without a single Scot.
John - February 24th, 2007 at 5:45 am
Nicely written article, and it is extremely beneficial to Scottish football that both Old Firm sides have (so far) reached the last 16 of their respective european competitions.
My only minor grievance is the final sentence. You’ll find that Dick Advocaat had many Scots in his squad, and Barry Ferguson was of course indeed a regular and the captain. Granted we had a larger array of foreigners at our disposal, however we still had the likes of Neil McCann, Colin Hendry, Allan Johnston, Billy Dodds, and probably some more minor additions like Paul Ritchie, and the *cough* prolific *cough* Kenny Miller…
We did have mostly foreigners, but I wouldn’t say we *routinely* fielded sides without a solitary Scot.
Finally there is obviously a downside to the fact Rangers played with 9 Scots, in that generally, they are mostly inferior to the best team Advocaat could field. It’s great to have a team full of Scots, but only if they are of good enough quality. I think most Rangers fans agree that many of the current squad, despite our successful european campaign, are simply not good enough.
And in saying all that… we’ll probably end up at Hampden!
Robert MacMillan - February 24th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
The last time Rangers had a team do well in Europe, ‘92-’93 season, it also fielded nine Scots for most of that European campaign. None of those players was a stand out but as a team they were superb. Too often Rangers have had great individual players who disappeared in the big European games so maybe this team can go a little further in this competion. Win it? No, but the semis would be nice. I thought Rangers were excellent on Thursday night but, of course, many are saying now that Tel Aviv were a crap team anyway! Strangely enough, I didn’t read before the game that they were crap but it’s to be expected. Anyway, nice article and it’s great to read about football when it comes to Rangers rather than the usual drivel written by nonentities.
big d - December 12th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
mcgregor is not rangers class