Different year, same merd (GERS … 0 Auxerre … 0)

A few days ago I posted a wee rant on this site claiming that, in view of our terrible performance against Inverness Caley three days subsequent to our defeat at Alkmaar, European progress would be detrimental to our hopes of winning the SPL title. The squads of both Rangers and our biggest challengers for domestic supremacy were stretched to the max this season more than any other in the last four or five years. With Celtic eliminated from the Champions League, a post-Christmas Uefa Cup run for Rangers could end our title challenge.
So, with The rangers now safely out of Europe before the Festive period gets under way, am I excited about winning the SPL? Are any Rangers fans waking up this morning thinking “YES! Now we can look forward to taking part in an exciting SPL title chase”? Do you think to yourself “Winning the Uefa Cup was unrealistic - let’s concentrate on domestic bliss”? No. Not a chance. Loisng last night was no real surprise. perhaps Graz doing Alkmaar to help put us out altogether was a TAD unexpected for some but Rangers set out their stall expecting a home win for the Austrians. What happened last night was so gutting because, while expected, it brought home once again just how incapable we are in Europe - while also reminding us exactly how much we want to be capable.

It was like revisiting the scene of a fatality. You know the person’s dead and you can live with that. But returning to the exact place they lost their life only heightens the sense of loss and brings back, with horrible clarity, the original sense of shock and heart-ache experienced at the time of their passing. Do those loved ones who survive dilute the initial feeling of distress? No. Does knowing we can still win the treble, that, in fact, we have INCREASED our chances of winning the treble, make last night any more bearable? Does it hell.

Apart from anything else, we’ve got leagues and trebles pouring out our pores at Rangers: The fact we’ve won more championships than any other team on the planet actually makes our failure to achieve even minimal success in Europe all the more humiliating. Gorging ourselves domestically while starving ourselves on the continent is one very unhealthy diet. I know I, for one, am heartly sick of it. And it’s in such a sick vein that I continue to compare the failure of a footbal team to the loss of people’s lives: All the living realtives in the world, like so many domestic trophies, cannot replace the continued absence of your nearest and dearest loved one. I want success in Europe for Rangers with a yearning which is driving me fu**ing insane. And we’re so far from achieving it as to be mourning it’s permanent passing.

Auxerre, as the Big Game tourists always think they’re being so clever in pointing out so loudly in my earhole on such nights, are just an ordinary European side. They won’t win the Uefa Cup. But they play in a much better leauge than us and last night they won at a canter. The Rangers players can’t be faulted for effort but neither can they be blamed for simply not having the ability to turn that effort into skill. They don’t play at a high enough level, they don’t play in a country which can provide that level. Thus “smaller” clubs than us - there were around a dozen Auxerre fans in the ground last night - will always come from the continent and turn us over.

Individual mistakes were made for each goal we lost but - come on - they scored one at the start of the first half and one at the start of the second. They walked both goals into the net. Then they shut up shop and we could do no more than lump high balls up to defenders who DREAM of a night they only have to defend high balls. If Auxerre had wanted their goals at other times in the game they would have got them. The lack of singing and pre-match excitemet told me that most of The Rangers support knew this before they’d even entered the stadium. We’re so sodding used to it. It’s actually the continual false hope-raising which is hardest to deal with - not the inevitable eventual failures.

We once reached three Erupean finals and two semi-finals in the space of eleven seasons. The culmination of that “era” was the lifting of the European Cup Winners Cup. Our ONLY European trophy in almost half a century of trying and that solitary piece of silverware came THIRTY THREE YEARS AGO! We’ve been to two quarter-finals and a semi in the intervening three decades. The last time we had a run worthy of the Rangers support was twelve years ago. It’s so over.

We tried the “Buying Success” route and ended up with a whole lot of debt and a realisation that we’d need a whole lot more debt if we were to make it beyond a few losses to G14 clubs. Boumsong, who was pish last night, will be leaving in January so we know that angle is dead in the water. Our only hoe now is to get some truly genius coaches into Murray Park and give them Scottish kids from five years old and change everything about their traditional psychology, skill level and diet: We have to do an Ajax or a Dynamo Kiev.

Either that or we have to move to England. But that would give us less access to Europe. I’d happily join the GM Vauxhall Conference though because PLUS CA CHANGE. And we can’t EVER rely on European competition EVER AGAIN to give us a lasting change of scene.

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Published:
12.16.04 / 10am
Category:
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