and there’s living on another planet.
That’s how I found many football fans up here recently, living in a different reality, thinking that Rangers would win the UEFA Cup last night.
Thankfully for football that didn’t happen.
The team that put as many goals past Bayern Munich as Rangers scored in the whole campaign managed to get past Walter Smith’s usual European formation of 9-0-1, that sometimes converts to a full flat back 10.
It was a struggle for them though, because no matter what the Rangers fullback Papic said about their luck running out their first piece of luck happened just under two weeks earlier when the Russians main strike target Pogrebniak – who himself scored twice as many goals as Rangers – was ridiculously yellow carded with a piece of play acting from a Bayern palyer, ruling him out for the final. Zenit really missed the big fella upfront, Tekke certainly wasn’t an adequate replacement, slow, dithering and ponderous on the ball with no cutting edge to get past the back nine. It’s no wonder Arshavin looked so disillusioned after knocking a few balls into the box.
It really says something about a team’s tactics and abilities when with little under 20 minutes to go and only just going one nil down their fans are in tears. Just before the opening goal, Smith was talking with one of his assistants who was holding a pencil, were they getting ready to write up their penalty takers list? That pencil then had to be put into some real work as Smith along with Ally “to be fare” McCoist scibbled away desperately to come up with a plan B.
The different reality also extended to the TV coverage, when you have the likes of commentary as STV put out you can never complain about another countries biased views on the game. Every miss control by a Zenit player that found it’s way to a Rangers player was a great interception and at the end grudgingly they had to accept that Zenit just about deserved to win the game 🙄
Archie “Wooof there’s the ball” Macpherson is one of the worst people to ever utter crap into a microphone, as he and the muppet next to him kept wittering on about how they should try and keep better possession, since when was that the Rangers game, yeah they might manage it against the likes of Gretna but against better teams it’s a hoof the ball away as quick as possible game.
Best indicator of that and of the player’s whole game was Barry Ferguson robbing the Zenit player only having one man to beat before the a free run at the ‘keeper. What did he do? As soon as possible desperately kicked it away somewhere in the direction of Darcheville, pretty much killing one off their few scoring opportunities.
Oh and there was the penalty, hand ball hand ball hand ball in the penalty area, yes it looked like Broadfoot certainly did.
But on the bright side the fans certainly had a chance to…
take a perverse pleasure from proving they are better behaved than English fans abroad – will aim to maintain their exemplary record in Europe this seasonAuslan Cramb
When will Cuellar be signing for Newcastle?