If you blow their history …

When I was a lad I read about amazing stuff which had happened just before I was born: Brazil winning three world cups out of four, Real Madrid winning five successive European Cups … and celtic setting the pace for British clubs in Europe.

In the eighties, wearing my pastels and rolling up my jacket sleeves, these phenomena of football seemed a million miles away. Brazil couldnae get past Italy, France or Argentina in any World Cup I watched. Real Madrid lost one European Cup final, to Liverpool, but generally seemed to lose in the semi-final every other year and celtic … huh! - they were too busy trying to remember how to beat Dundee United, never mind getting anywhere near Christmas in Europe. However, as the nineties progressed into the new millennium, and as my mobile phones got steadily smaller, it all gradually started happening again:

Real Madrid are the now only side to win the Champions League more than once, never mind doing it three times in five years. With the current European Cup format taking two and half times more games than the fifties and sixties version, we can be sure this Real side are every bit as dominant in Europe and as star-studded as their Pathe News predecessors. Last night I couldn’t help but notice Ronaldo’s chubby little gut - very reminiscent of a certain Ferenc Puskas, who joined up at Real after their fourth Champions Cup and added some extra icing to an already sickly-sweet cake.

Only a few months ago the great Buck Toothed One helped Brazil win their second World Cup out of three successive appearences in the final since 1994 and, well, we all know where this story is going … Oporto tonight and Andalucia next month.

Next season in Scotland Alex McLeish is going to find himself in a very similar position to a certain Scot Symon. In other words, his brilliant domestic achievements will come to mean less and less every time Rangers fail in Europe - all because of what’s happened across the city in a bigger competition.

I said last season, when Feyenoord were damned lucky against us then went on to win it, that the UEFA Cup is seriously do-able for the old firm. Been saying all season that celtic could “easily” go on and win it … but I WAS JUST TALKING OUT A HOLE IN MY ARSE!!! They didnae huv tae go and prove me right!!

Even if the SPL was something other than a two-horse race, memories of a Scottish achievement like that in Europe are always going to outlast “neutral” recollections of yet another Rangers championship. Even the treble is becoming little more than a minimum requirement for a new-ish Rangers/Celtic gaffer. If McLeish does the domestic clean-sweep, he won’t have achieved anything the last two Rangers managers and the current celtic manager didn’t.

The UEFA cup used to be the hardest of all the Euro trophies to win but, as more and more sides from the top countries were allowed into the Champions League, it’s become a lot less arduous. It’s still an incredible feat for any side to go all the way in Europe, especially one which plays in a mickey mouse league - O’neill deserves his sainthood - but why the hell couldn’t it have been us?! More than 30 years on and nothing’s changed:

I want to thrash them on Sunday more than ever. I want Rangers to lift our World-record 50th League championship with as much desperation as I did the day we lifted our 49th. Truth be told, celtic’s feat in making a European final for the first time in 33 years is in itself only taking what Rangers managed last season and in the 1992/93 Champions League a stage further. However, because of 1967, that’ll all be forgotten. And let’s not kid ourselves, the moment Rangers start struggling under McLeish, WE will be the first to forget all the years we made the Champions League while the smelly ones sat at home. Scottish teams in Europe is a minimalist affair - the long periods of nothingness don’t count; they only serve to make the happenings more memorable.

So THIS TIME, unlike 67, Rangers must respond positively to what celtic have pulled off on the continent. That means NOT sacking McLeish the moment we’re papped out of Europe before the quarter-finals but giving him the financial and emotional support he needs to take us a step further than The Other Lot. (ie give him TWO seasons!)

Congratulations to celtic on their marvellous Euro-run? Nah. It’d be too hypocritical and it’d never be reciprocated - ye can be damn sure THEY ain’t happy for “Scottish” football. But we certainly shouldn’t see tonight’s events as a negative - if a team we’ve been out-playing and out-achieving for the last year can make a Euro final, there’s absolutely no reason we can’t.


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