Esprit de 93? (GERS … 1 Crvena Zvezda … 0)

Can someone give Daniel Cousin a shout - I need him to retrieve my heid from the girders of the Govan Stand roof. No hurry, mind - no hurry at all - in rather a good mood, actually, and happy to be savouring the moment for a little bit longer than usual.

Patiently doing it right, tonight - we was doing it slow. Like Robert Duvall says to Sean Penn in Colours, when giving him the homily about the Daddy Bull and the son Bull, both stood on the hill overlooking the meadow:

“come on, dad, let’s run down there and fuck one of those cows”

No, son - let’s WALK down there and fuck ALL of those cows!”

Or was it Zulu, with Michael Caine et al? The Warwickshire Regiment hold, hooold, HO-O-O-O-O-LD, holding their gunfire behind the hastily-erected defences of Rorke’s Drift, until they can see the whites of the charging natives’ eyes?

Not that there was anything hastily-erected about our defence tonight:

Kirk Broadfoot is a smashing lad who will do well in the SPL and is still being played out of position at a brand new environment. But he currently looks like he’ll have a nosebleed whenever the ball comes to him in space and he has just set a record for the biggest number of foul shys to go unpunished in one game. Yet, if we can still keep our 2007/2008 sheet stain-free, this time on an Ibrox Euro night against a former European Champion side, then the Cuellar-Weir partnership must be almost god-like.

They’re certainly heavenly to watch.

Whatever it was, we kept our powder dry until the moment was just right tonight and we never, ever panicked. “We” being Rangers the team, rather than Rangers the punters - most of whom went home with a slight tinge to the undergarments, leaving it as late as our heroes did. But there was a maturity and patience to this team selection and team performance, rather than the desperate flawedness which some departing dissatisfied Bluenoses seemed to detect.

Walter knew how good Red Star were, even in their present incarnation. He also knows how potentially poor a nascent Rangers team can be - especially one which, although far from cheap, still costs a hell of a lot less than most of the XIs we’ve been watching at The Govan Palace over the last twenty years. Walter knew how the game should be played and he also knew the crowd wouldnae like it. But something’s going on in that dressing room which rises above the infamous Ibrox impatience.

The players did what they were told and the back door remained shut - FIRST PRIORITY - while we absorbed the midfield tsunami of Serbian resistance - SECOND PRIORITY - and then, after we took around 85 minutes to get priority one and two sorted, the huffing and puffing up front became just that tad more pointed and, THIRD PRIORITY …

… the match was snatched by wee Nach and I’m as happy as a man wi’ a thatch for his bald patch … natch’. Tonight, troops, was just lovely.

This, for Yours Bluely was THE PERFECT PERFORMANCE for a European first leg played at home. This, all things considered, was a really smashing night out at The Brox. Someone who has grown up obsessing on European Football and Rangers’ continued inability to scale the heights thereof, is presently more chuffed than Neitzche sat in his room at the Alpenrose with a framed photo of Cosima Wagner snogging Lou Salomé.

[Wanna see how obsessed I am about The Teds and European fitbaw? Want to see what the inside of my fitbaw brain looks like? Want to almost meet the sad, fat git who writes all this interminable keich? Well, click on this and then click on the great big video at the top of the page. http://uk.youtube.com/profile?user=FatEck13 Sorry but, as I point out at the beginning of this dizzying little film, my microphone wisnae working - so it’s ALL visual clues … and I ain’t no Stanley Kubrick:]

I know what regular victims of this blog are thinking right now. I know that those of you who are still awake, still sober or coming off the junk are currently thinking - “how the hell can he be so chuffed about beating Red Star 1-0 in a home first leg when he was so pissed-off about us beating FK Zeta 2-0 at the same stage of the last round?!! Why are we noh getting the Paul Le Guen lecture tonight??!!”

Simple: First of all, as mentioned above, Red Star tonight demonstrated they are clearly in better nick than a lot of folk anticipated - myself incuded;

Secondly, If ye accept that the Serbian league is a notch up from the Montenegran top flight then 2-0 at Ibrox v Zeta becomes 1-0 at Ibrox v Red Star and, hopefully, 1-0 away against Zeta becomes 0-0 away to Red Star and it’s Job Done - Zadok The Priest on the speakers, big star balls on the walls, and a Ten Million Quid cheque addressed to “The Teds, The Palace, Edmiston Drive, Glesgie”, IF YOU PLEASE!

Thirdly, I’ve just watched Rangers play three succesive European matches WITHOUT CONCEDING A GOAL. And when ye’ve watched as much European football and read about as much European Football and attended as much European Football and been as UNBELIEVABLY REPETITIVE AND BORING about SOOOOO much European Football, as I have, ye know that teams who don’t concede generally only need to score one goal to go through …

Sorry, did that third point sound sarcastic? Didnae mean it. Putting it in more immediate terms, in my 23 years of attending our UEFA competition games I’ve seen Rangers losing so many Away Goals at Ibrox that two successive home clean sheets in the European Cup is seriously heartening. We’ve actually now gone three straight European matches without losing a goal and, although it’s something we’ve actually managed a couple of times previously in the last four years, it lets us know that Walter does indeed know what he’s doing to a certain degree - the degree, certainly at which Rangers should realistically hope to aspire to on our present budget and with so many new faces in the squad; ie Champions League qualification.

We’ve just made it five competitive wins out of five and no goals against - I think there’s something special happening here.

I was reading , in the When Saturday Comes season preview (Check out the Rangers correspondent - sounds like a right cock!) how Stockport County’s fans last season gave their team a huge standing ovation when they conceded their first goal in ten games. I would LOVE to see us get to the stage where the first goal we lose this season is actually a moment of retrospective celebration. Rangers - the traditional, PROPER Rangers style is based on solid defence first and foremost and I’m so proud that we’re doing that again, and that we’ve previously done it better than any other club in Britain…

When Walter was assistant gaffer to Sooooooouness, we went a few more than five successive games without conceding in the 1986/87 season. But it was never properly celebrated coz, either side of Chrissy Woods’ record 1196 unbeaten minutes were Adrian Sproat’s historic, infamous winner for Hamilton Accies in the Scottish Cup and Uwe Rahn’s fatal AWAY GOAL for Borussia Moenchengladbach in the UEFA Cup.

I hope to hell our first concession of this season is far enough away and in circumstances which allow us to get on our feet and pay tribute to Cuellar, Weir and McGregor - with honourable mentions for Alan Hutton, Brahim Hemdani, Kevin Thomson, Kirk Broadfoot and, possibly the most improved player around The Brox these days, Sasa Papac.

How ironic that our Bosnian couldnae play against The Serbs and how ironic that Kris Boyd, the man who could score against everyone but Celtic, finally gets his goal against Celtic and finds he now cannae score against anyone else. Papac I was sorry to see left out tonight - Kris I wasn’t. No offence to the man, who should start EVERY domestic game we play - but he’s not equipped for proper European games and that’s what tonight was. Say what ye like about Red Star’s decline but, as we’ve seen from the Smelly Tick over the last forty years, once a club has won the European Cup they ALWAYS have a lustre and a danger to them, no matter their subsequent plights

Walter Smith had the guts to play a cagey game tonight. He had the guts to play two forwards in Darchevile and Beasley who would do nothing other than start the defence of the Rangers’ goal at the edge of the Red Star 18-yard box. We drew a yellow-card foul from just about the entire Red Star team - subs included! - and this was a sign of their frustration at our lack of fear, the complete absence of panic from Rangers playing ranks. By the end of the first half the AWAY side were the ones trying to wind up the Rangers crowd - but they made a key mistake in gesticulating to the front of the Govan and bitching with our players JUST AT THE POINT where Rangers could have been booed off the park by the clueless element of our support. Any Bluenose ire was turned on the Serbs as the players headed for their cuppa.

The Good Old Belgrade Marakana held 90,000 in its day and will be a stadium ablzae with Serbian passion in a fortnight’s time - but there were clear signs this evening that their players will lose the rag if we keep it tight for the proverbial “first twenty”. And there were even clearer signs - transparent if you will - that we’ll keep it tight all bloody night.

We hardly had a shot on goal tonight until we actually scored but I’m convinced this was tactical chess match Rangers won, through dilligence, patience, bottle and sheer-fekin know-how. Also, we won it through a punt up the park fae the goalie, flicked on by Lee McCulloch, pounced on by The Nachster. This team never stops - and has a tantalising level of bubbling quality and belief right the way through it.

So, suddenly I’m all for Walter and forgetting about the mistake we made in losing PLG? Not exactly. The lack of a crowd tonigh showed that The Rangers support is all about winning the SPL and that kind of myopia, which paved the way for PLG’s departure, does my nut in. But, if we know what we get with Walter then there’s something about Europe we CAN get excited about.

There is, ye see, a giant lacuna in my reasoning on Walter Smith’s Second Coming - ye know, my conviction that Walter will bring back the SPL title this season but in Europe will fail to get us past Christmas, if he even gets us into the Champions League proper. I know Walter has grown as a manager in the nine years since the 1998 Scottish Cup Final - beating France as Scotland gaffer was probably the culmination of everything he’d picked up at the likes of Goodison and Old Trafford. But so many early and painful European exits, so many embarrassing continental defeats during the Nine-In-A-Row days had convinced me, in true Calvinist style, that we could only enjoy Walter’s domestic genius if we paid the price in Europe.

To have unbridled success in BOTH arenas would, to my mind, have John Knox himself leaping out his rest in St Giles, pelting along the M8 - within the speed limit, of course, and in an eco-friendly Skoda with NAE car stereo, nae air-conditioning nor other such baudy trinkets of unholy indulgence - stealing Andy Cameron’s microphone and laying into us all from the middle of the pitch about our straight path to hell and damnation. He’d do the Lucky Stars draw while he was there, obviously - and present the cheque to last week’s winner, Sheila fae Anniesland - pose for a few photies with Sheila and Sandy Jardine … and THEN he’d give us the full two hours of fire and brimstone about our greed and lustfulness, wanting Walter to give us all the trinkets in Scotland AS WELL as all the baubles from Popish Europe!!!

BUT…

But it nearly happened before. And John Knox didnae appear. We nearly won it ALL on one previous occassion…

There is a huge, massive, colossal Daniel Cousin-sized hole in my “Walter’s rubbish in Europe” argument, based as it is on past experience of the man who, for me, is still nevertheless the greatest Rangers manager outside Bill Struth:

I think Walter’s superb becuase he brought us Nine-In-A-Row - one of the two huge boulders round my neck as I began my life as a Rangers fan. Walter exorcised the demon of Celtic’s record-setting period of League domination. The reason I think he’s second only to Struth in our managerial hall of fame is because, well, I DON’T think 1971/72 was our best season in Europe. I DON’T think the Rangers team which won the European Cup-Winners’ Cup is the best Gers team of modern times. I think the 1992/93 team is the greatest Rangers team of, certainly my life, maybe longer. Because that’s the team which, while winning the treble in Scotland, came closer than any other Rangers side to lifting Europe’s ultimate prize, to lifting that second boulder from round my fat, red neck. We were a goal away from the European Cup final, the first ever Champions League final - and our manager at the time was one WALTER SMITH.

Now we were crap in Europe BEFORE that under Walter and AFTER that under Walter. But, for that one glorious season, everything just gelled and, I swear, we would have won that fucking final - Marseille couldane beat us - home or away - but they could beat an off-form Milan in the Munich final. Just as Celtic beat Inter it would have been a Glasgow v Milan final again - the poetry was there - we were all set … ah, BOLLOX!! Whit a load of pish. “Ifs” and “buts” don’t count. Never have. A goal away from the final is as good as ten goals away from a final - we didnae get there and that’s that. But it’s still the best European season in Rangers’ history as far as I’m concerned and we did it with great players, yes, and a certain amount of tactics, yes - but mostly with sheer esprit de corps and wild, youthful, exuberant BELIEF.

That 92/93 team had an energy and sense of adventure which overcame any of the shortcomings which were highlighted in any of walter’s other European seasons at Rangers. And he too shared that energy because the Nine-In-A-Row was still five-then-four league titles away - it was too distant a dream to become the drain on our European ambitions it eventually did (and I wouldn’t have had it any other way: NIAR and TIAR were once-in-a-lifetime chances which had to be taken - NOW we can concentrate on Europe). Walter was only in his second full season as manager in 1992/93 - he’s now in his first full season of his second coming but his experience of the job will compensate for the fact he’s only had six competitive months back in the hot-seat. It’s Waldo’s last hurrah but we’re in the springtime of his retirement if ye see what I mean - there’s nowhere near enough energy in Walter or money in the Ibrox coffers to seriously think about the latter stages of the Champions League. But, doing it all on a smaller scale, there’s enough juice in all the right tanks to get us into the bloody thing in the first place.

When Wee Nach came off the bench tonight he epitomised that new belief. A team which keeps going til the end - a team which scores the winner dead on the ninetieth minute is a team which is loving the ride. Waldo’s due one more major season in Europe - getting this side into the Group Stages will be a mini-1992/93 and, if not all we want, certainly all we need at this stage in our history.

Oh, and, just to end on a bitter note - so ye know all my cynicism doesnae go on holiday when celebrating a perfect European performance - where exactly was the crowd tonight?? I’m sure there were even more empty seats for this game than there were for the Zeta game? I don’t care about ticket prices or live TV coverage - after all the years of abuse David Murray took for losing us money, we have two ties to get through if we want to bring ten million squid to the club and there’s MASSES of empty blue seats?!! Seems that Walter has inded just been brought back to win the league because that seems to be as far as the average Rangers fan’s ambition and imagination stretches these days. How many who did bother to come even stayed for the ninety minutes?? Lucky if 25,000 Rangers fans saw the winning goal in the flesh. Here’s hoping we have 50,000 believing for the entire ninety three or four minutes by the end of the season - this potentially very special season.

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Published:
08.15.07 / 1am
Category:
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