Lumey sub sails choppy Blue Sea (Das Boot … 2 Villarreal … 2)

Rangers still rules the waves but the Spanish Yellow Submarine which prowls below tonight hit our hull with as many depth charges as we landed on their bridge.

I could get really carried away with the awful nautical analogies but I’ve just listened to Jim Delahunt use exactly the same patter on the STV highlights programme - I disgust myself. So let me just say, in a final tidal-themed comment, this time also an allusion to the revelation of a young left-back Stevie Smith’s female poet namesake, I feel we’re slightly more likely to be waving than drowning after tonight’s result.

Okay, Alex McLeish has perhaps just taken it one step too far in his quest to ensure Villarreal are viewed as favourites in this tie. The self-deprecating press conference patter was fine, Eck but asking Big Dado to play a bit of basketball in his own box before the seventh minute had elapsed was one mind-game too many. However, there’s a real sense - in my shell-shocked head at least - that Villarreal might just have left Ibrox with a result and performance which fools them into believing it’s all over while also proving that it really ain’t (not until the fat lady sings … a sea shanty).

And, as much as I consider this slick Spanish outfits’ strengths and remember all the weaknesses we showed, there’s just something so NUTS about this European adventure - something so undeniably crazy in the air when The Gers of 2005/2006 start going continental - that I really can’t help believing, in a Big Marv stylee. Coz all that nutiness was on display again in this mental, whacky, schizoid , see-me-I’m-a-person, barmy, loco, first-leg-of-a-last-sixteen-tie kind of night.

I think we’re in with a shout here and - this is where a lot of you start applying to have me sectioned - I think Eck got it spot-on with our tactics this evening.

My cerebral instinct about tonight’s game had been a 3-1 win for the visitors. But the gut - the only place where instincts should really come from, after all - wasn’t too surprised when we plucked a draw out of the air in the final minutes of a pulsating, throat-rasping, hum-dinging tussle of confusion, wonder, disgust, rapture and sheer fucking bedlam.

This was almost Porto at Ibrox all over again: Except that this time the team in Yellow avoided losing that final third Rangers goal, there was all the other rollercoaster, Jeckyll-and-Hyde stuff: Lovenkrands scores a beauty, we concede some crazy goals and we’re let off the hook of defeat by a massive defensive blunder from the Iberian boys.

For Vitor Baia’s flapping read Juan Manuel Pena’s back-heel into his ain top corner; For that Lovenpants drive into the Broomloan Road net against the Portugese, read Lovenpants’ even better, wonderful, smashing, GLOOOOOORIOUS drive into the same net against the Spaniards; For two simple headed goals conceded against Jose Mourinho’s old club, read one moment of temporary psychosis from a Rangers hero - the only other time I’ve seen a guy so inexplicibaly and unnecessarily handle in his own box like that was ME, in a work’s game at Largs Juniors ground 16 or 17 years ago! - and one thorough failure to properly interpret the new(ish) laws on offside as we allowed Forlan to walk the ball into our net.

We had the 2-2 scoreline in Bratislava too - as well as an equally unsatisfactory draw against Artmedia at The Brox. We only won one game in the Group stage, we took plenty slaggings - from our own fans as much as anyone - but still The Teds went through. We haven’t been doing anything convincingly all season - but we’ve been strangely, underwhelmingly progressing in Europe, playing EXACTLY the kind of “Why the hell are you DOING that??!!” football we saw tonight.

Villarreal lost just one goal in the six matches of the group stage - we scored two against them in one game. Okay, they may only have scored three goals in the group stage and almost equalled that in one game tonight (aherm!…) but they put Man U and Everton out - we’ve actually rocked their underwater boat more in one game than either of those two Premiership hopefuls managed over two legs. And yet - crucially - Villarreal now think it’s a formality. They think their quarter-final place is in the bag.

Sorry to be fate-temptingly positive but, erm, they think wrong.

Diego Forlan was interviewed by Chicko Young as I listened to the Radio on the way home in the car (careful! I went home via the Clyde Tunnel - there could be more under-water analogies on the horizon!) and he was clearly a bit miffed his side hadn’t won the game on the night. As diplomatic as he tried to be in the face of Chick’s limited English, the Ex-Man U and Independiente striker was obviously thinking “That mob were pish! How could we noh totally do them??!! - man, they’re pyoor gettin it in a fortnight.”

This’ll sound like a desperate bit of blue-blinkered self-deception but Villarreal’s fully-justified confidence, and the way The Gers fed it in this first encounter, can be their undoing. Time and time again over the footballing years we see one side play another off the pitch, score goals and make chances but never get enough goals and find that the rare chances created against them end up in their net. The sense of injustice bred by so much possession and such an obviously superior level of technical ability having no effect can, in teams with a slight collective personality defect, produce a frustration which ultimately proves to be their Achilles heel.

Brazil against Uruguay in the 1950 world cup final, in Rio; Hungary against West Germany in the 1954 World Cup final in Berne; Holland against West Germany in the 1974 World Cup final in Munich; New Zealand against South Africa in the 1995 Rugby Union World Cup final. In all cases the first team was undoubtedly the best on the planet, in all cases the first team took the lead - in all cases the “ugly” second team turned it round and won. In all cases the “best” team had cruised through to the final while their opponents had endured a bit of a struggle enroute.

Rangers have sailed choppy waters all season - we know how to navigate the bumpy rides.

Villarreal had the ball in our net four times tonight. Two counted and at least one of the other two should have. We scored one truly sublime goal and the other was provided by Villarreal themselves. Any sense of injustice we might harbour (”Harbour”! Good eh?!) about Tacchinardi’s blatant handling in the box with a few minutes left should be measured against the extra goal Forlan should have had and the one Gonzalo could have had allowed if the assistant ref had seen it a bit differently. They’ll think us jammy in that justifiably arrogant way Latin sides do. This is good - it allows the Spaniards (in fact, so many of them were South American that it’s a bit silly to call them Spaniards but you know what I mean) to feel dangerously superior while not possessing the actual two-goal lead they could easily have taken into their home leg.

The way they moved the ball about - especially Riquelme in his first game back after weeks out injured - was nothing short of sensational at times but, in the end, we lived with it. Another HUGE “thank you” to the fans who organised a BRILLIANT co-ordinated card display but the same punters who held up the Red, White and Blue show of beauty and roared their team on when in the ascendancy also put a hell of a lot of pressure on The Rangers when things aren’t going our way - things have been so poor this season that a lot of our players will feel more liberated when playing away from home. And the formation and personnel Eck put out tonight was built to stop Villarreal playing too much of their own game in such an uptight atmos:

Namouchi came in, not to be creative so much as mobile and physical. But he did create as well as spoiling well. Hemdani’s not got the fitness yet but he did enough defensively to keep us on an even keel. J-Rod and Soti were all at sea a few times but will have learned a lot about their partnership after this duel with a world class strike force - in Spain we will sit deeper and give our rearguard more cover.

Lovenkrands came back in and scored yet another Champions League cracker by pouring straight through that middle - he took a bit of a strop when told to move out wide to accommodate Buffel through the middle and, although straight onto the ball and clearly still up for the cup, was duly subbed for Nacho. Dado will miss the second leg coz he picked up a daft booking but I’m not overly worried as he isn’t fully fit - this, I think, was the reason behind his moment of madness in his own box and in the away game we’ll need footballers who can get to a long ball fast rather than high.

Let’s not forget that Chris Burke, while getting more joy through the middle than the right wing - particularly in setting up our first goal - forced them to sub their Argentine captain and replace him with … the captain of Argentina!

Eck? In putting out a team designed to turn the game into a battle we could compete in rather than a football match we’d always lose, showed real balls. Yeah, the fans might have been singing “Booooo-feeeeellle, Buffel” as a sign of their frustration with the dourer line-up but when he brought the Belgian on it was at a time when the visiting defence was stretching itself: The softening-up had been done and McLeish knew when to introduce the incisive skill-meister who could capitalise on that softness - it’s just a coincidence that it happened at the same time as so many Bears sang Tommy’s name. A weaker manager would have kept the fans’ favourite on the bench at that point, in an effort to look unswayed and a bit hard.

Having said that, though - I’m currently trying to figure out a tune for the most effective chanting of “Play Lovenkrands and Buffel through the middle and tell Barry to push further up! Play Lovenkrands and Buffel through the middle and tell Barry to push further up!…”.

Villarreal are a cracking good side but they have no history as a club and that tends to fuel petulance rather than patience when things go against you. Rangers are a crappy side right now but a club with a massive history - we know that we often win games through sheer dint of BEING Rangers! We’ve also learned never to give up and that when opportunity knocks we can unlock the door. Our present collection of players and our club as a whole have seen it all - and our fortitude might yet overcome our ineptitude, because the latter breeds the former when players have resilient characters.

Yup. I think it’s all gonnae come down to character - and we have more of that than Villarreal.

Arsenal, Barcelona, Villarreal - only Morecambe played in yellow shirts this mid-week and failed to win. Villarreal, Parma, Livingston, Chievo - yellow is the colour of clubs who come out of nowhere and nothing to coast up their top flight and make it into Europe. Blue Shirts, White shorts, Black socks with a Red fold - these are the colours of the Real Rangers strip - we let Europe see them tonight and we should do so again on Tuesday week, as we try to beat our previous record of ten European Cup/Champions League games in one season.

Submarines have to come up for air sometime … (Bugger! I keep DOING that!)