Not just another Ibrox Euro night

Extra time and penalties? A certainty. In my heid anyway.

Rangers win 3-0 and stroll on into the Champions League Group stages? What most Gers fans expect.

So the logical prediction, I would say, is for The Rangers to win 2-1 again. That’s as much of a stroll as I need when it comes to watching The Teds in Europe.

A part of me just can’t believe that we’ll do anything other than make the Famagusta match a struggle. Think it’s the part of me called experience.

As we’ve discussed so often on this page, the reality of Rangers in Europe only influeces our thinking when we’re sat in front of our PCs, when we’re miles from the stadium and hours from kick-off. When it comes to match night, when you’re there - it’s all very different. These two extremes of faith are, of course, caused by each other.

Our continued failure to really scale the continental heights is one of the reasons the atmosphere for Govan Euro nights is so special. It’s why some players from infintely more succesful clubs envy The Blue Sea of Ibrox.

Roy Keane commented after Man United’s 2003 vist to Glasgow that he wished the Old Trafford atmosphere could be more like what he’d experienced from The Bears that evening. But the Eire captain said this after his club side had collected all three points - anything les than reaching the final of a European competition is failure for Man U and all the other G14 clubs. When you’ve done it a few times before - when you have the funds to do it again, the desire goes from the terraces: Passion is replaced by expectation.

But it does not follow logically that I want the Gers fans to become blase about Champions League qualifiers. The ferocity of the belief and encouragement when Rangers come down the Ibrox tunnel for a UEFA match is one of the reasons I live life - it’s beautiful, it’s visceral, it’s gonnae be one of the images going through my napper just before I nip off to meet my maker…

Wife, mum, Dad, sister … first fight in the schol playground .. first kebab … first kiss, first orgasm … first Mars bar … Tony Dorigo jumping up and down on the spot, yards away from me as I sit down the front of the Govan and everyone waits for the ref to blow his whistle: The tramplolining East Enclosure going higher than Dorigo and a noise so loud it actually can’t be heard … my first beer … my first Coca cola … that teacher I fancied - whatever his name was …

But the visit of Famagusta won’t reach the heights of the manic European nights. Partly because we’ve notched up a first leg lead and two away goals - so we can only throw it away. But also because of the very thing which might actually lead Anorthosis to effect Rangers’ worst ever European let-down:

A week back on Sunday, Helios Airways flight ZU 522 crashed into mountains outside Athens and the deaths of all on board made all the headlines which deserve to use words like “disaster” and “tragedy”. If Famagusta do eliminate The Gers in this tie, their players and their fans will know better than us how to put it into perspective.

The Plane crash cost the lives of 121 people, most of them Cypriots - many of them from Famagusta and its immediate environs. As well as noted personalities from the island’s football farternity, the aunt, uncle and two nieces of Famagusta captian Nicolas Nikolau were among the victims. He will play at Ibrox.

Last week, just days after the tragedy, the Cypriot national team had a player sent off in their match away to the Faoroe Islands. They still won 3-0 … in a tie Scotland could only draw 2-2 and Germany could only win 2-0 in the Euro 2004 qualifiers. The Famagusta players will also demonstrate this sense of heightened pride in the jersey. We should be aware of this, in terms of our team’s performace but we’ll all be respectful of the deeper issue.

We’ve bothing against the Cypriot side, who lost 1-0 to a Gordon Durie goal ten years ago at the same stage of the same competition. This mid-week, if we’ve got anything against anyone it is celtic - we want to seize this chance to grab the big Champions League bucks as they struggle with their �19M debt and their early elimination from Europe. We can set ourselves up as Glasgow’s economic Numero Uno for a few seasons by progressing to this Friday’s CL draw. That’s as far as the small-mindedness goas - the rest is all about a mad, crazy notion of Rangers actually making the knock-out stages of the Champions League (something which would definitely cost us this season’s SPL but would be darn worth it as long as it’s Hearts who take our crown!)

There’ll be a minute’s silence before the game and I think our behaviour towards the Famagusta fans and players will bare in mind what they’ve been through. The rest is only football.