My Big Fat Greek”GEDDINTHERE!!!!” (Pana … 1 GERS … 1 - Gers win on away goals)

Sometimes I stare in space
Tears all over my face
I can’t explain it, don’t understand it
I ain’t never felt like this before

But that doesn’t mean it has me amazed
I don’t know what to do, my head’s in a haze

Just like a heatwave!!

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Many a classic song was sung by this outrageously brilliant Motown girl band but, my personal favourite, has to be (love is like a) Heatwave. And call me a mincing old queen but I have to tell ye, ever since we signed him, in July of 2004, Nacho Novo and that song have gone together in my head like two cowboys spending weeks together in a single tent up in the mountains, minding the sheep. Nacho plays with a passion which fills yer heart with joy. He plays with a love of The Teds which makes ye just want to love him right back - sometimes more than I maybe should. Whenever I’m with him/Something inside/ Starts to burnin’/And I’m filled with desire//Could it be the devil in me/Or is this the way love’s supposed to be?/ JUST LIKE A HEATWAVE!! Fuck it - I’ve always loved petite brunettes! So what if this particular one just happens to come with a Spanish willy and a whole load of jailhouse-style tats as extra! I’m willing to make an exception - as long as he keeps DOING THE BUSINESS FOR THE TEDDY BEARS!!! Oh, Nacho - I FUCKING LOVE YOU WEE MAN!!!!

And I think I always have.

I saw ye playing agin’ us for Bonnie Dundee and then, when ye signed on at The Brox I said this http://www.fateck.co.uk/index.php/2004/07/06/nacho-comes-with-a-spicy-dip/ and I always thought you’d be a Rangers legend - and you’re now more of a legend than anyone even knows because - MY GORAM! - the goals you score are the goals which make all the REAL difference but somehow, SOMEHOW seem to get lost in the general amazingness of their repercussions. Nacho baby, Yer the man who does the dirty stuff (maybe that’s why I have a border-line sexual passion for ye, wee man) - you’re the guy who grinds out the goals we most need. Yer a kind of janitor of the historical score-sheet. Ye keep things tidy for The Rangers, just when the threat of humiliation or disaster is close at hand. And ye do it for the club and the fans - even though ye never get the proper levels of recognition from either.

Even when ye scored the goal which won us the FUCKING LEAGUE TITLE (!!!) on 22nd May 2005, the guy who scored two for Motherwell got more praise and news coverage. Yer goal at Parkhead that season gave us our first win at the piggery for five years. Yer goal in Moscow kept our Champions League qualification hopes against CSKA alive. Yer penalties and other such goals against Celtic at Ibrox ensured neither Strachan nor O’Neill was allowed a dynasty in Scotland. In Livorno ye showed what could be done under PLG - and ye showed how much ye appreciated him for his ideas. In Israel ye scored on a night we played poorly to take the heat out a second leg we eventually romped. Against Red Star Belgrade at Ibrox this season ye netted in the last minute, to ensure we DID go into the Champions League group stages - ye made us millions of pounds, wee man - ye kept our heads held high when no-one expected a European run.

Nacho, MAH MAN, you go to the dark places, in dark times and you give us the hope, wee man. Parkhead, Livorno, Moscow, Tel Aviv -and the last-minute of Champions League qualifiers …

… and now ATHENS … with 8 minutes left … and European elimination staring us in the face …

We were NOT on song tonight. The Gers did NOT look convincing. This, in other words, was classic Nacho territory - the man who scored at Easter Road while Celtic were still odds-on to win at Fir Park. The man who does the unglamorous ESSENTIAL stuff, did it again tonight. AGAIN!

Boyd was missing everything, Barry was only just getting into the game, Davis was going for the spectacular header and Burke was doing the loopy runs and dribbles but, as much as they were making the opportunity - it was Nacho who RATTLED THAT FUCKING THING OVER THAT LINE and ensured this European adventure will end no earlier than last season’s. The Teds are playing in Europe after Chrsitmas for the third consecutive season. Nacho’s goals have ensured we’ll be playing European football in MID-MARCH for the second consecutive season.

It might all stop with Werder Bremen. Maybe some would say, on form, it SHOULD stop at the Wesser Stadion. But, the unerring fact remains - Paul Le Guen, Alex McLeish and Walter Smith have all greatly enhanced their reputations - even against overhwelming fan opinion - by playing Nacho Novo: The man who personifies our inability to crumble.

Every tie in Europe is now a bonus. It has been, frankly, since we beat Red Star Belgrade (thanks to Nacho - only goal of the tie). But for a club under so much criticism and suffering from so much confusion within its own support, to be here again, 12 months on from Osassuna, is AMAZING. This is respectability AGAIN. Three years on the trot. European respectability is, in footballing terms, the only kind which counts for a club of our size and THANK FUCK Nacho is so much more aware of what we need than so many of the fans he loves so much and who love him right back.

When ye see what we keep doing when changing managers and slagging our own team, staff and chairman - WHAT DO YE THINK WE COULD ACHIEVE IF WE ALL FUCKING UNITED??!!! If we just got down and concentrated through the rough times, retained our focus like Ignacio Novo. We coudl go EVEN FURTHER. We could get as far as Manchester in May!! He’s been on that bench and out of that squad so many times. And he just keeps coming back and GIVING IT HIS ALL and GIVING OUR CLUB THE RESULTS which almost begin to match the lustre on our crest!

Trust David Murray. Trust Walter Smith. Trust THE FUCKING CLUB YOU LOVE - and we’ll have a whole team full of Nachos … which never dips.

Whenever he calls my name
So slow, sweet and plain
I feel, yeah, yeah,
Well I feel that burning flame

Has my blood pressure got a hold on me
Or is this the way love’s supposed to be

Just like a heatwave

Can’t tell ye how happy I am tonight, troops. Well, I suppose I can - I’m as happy as YOUSE ARE!!!

What idiot said it was “BOUND TO BE 0-0 and we’d win on penalties!”???!! What GIT said that??!! A whole TWELVE minutes that prediction lasted - and a whole 70 minutes later I saw Rangers do what I’ve only really seen them doing once before - In Porto, in the Champions League, two whole seasons back - we turned a poor performance into a winning result.

In Porto it was more markedly unexpected. Plus, I was AT that game so I feel it more keenly still - one of the happiest days and nights of my life. We hardly had a touch, never mind an attack in Do Dragao before Ross McCormack scored the equaliser of all equalisers - the result which did more to put us through to the knockout stages than any other. And, although we bravely and steadily edged our way into this game in Athens tonight, there was still that same overall feeling: In Europe, Rangers don’t ever get out of the gear in which they started the game. ie, if we win in Europe, it’s usually because we’ve always looked like winning … or because the opposition is so much poorer than us. If we lose in Europe, it’s usually looked like we’ll lose from the word go. We’re very same-paced in continental competition. We might pull off shock results, but they’ve been on the cards from the first whistle.

Tonight, Kirk Broadfoot forgot how to jump, Kris Boyd - no offence to him, I want him to start against Gretna - showed why he’s not European class (yet??!!) and our cageyness, which I hoped wouldl be posited on keeping it at 0-0, began to look unwise as Panathinaikos made it evident why they too have a great record of clean sheets this season. It wasn’t going well - or so I thought.

Taking my own advice, I trusted in Walter. His timing was absolutely fucking immaculate - knowing EXACTLY when to stick and EXACTLY when to twist. He knew it was about keeping it TIGHT rather than necessarily goalless because he knew there was only ONE team that could score an away goal after a first leg in which he KNEW we had to keep a clean sheet above all else. Walter knew when Pana would start to panic, start to fall back deeper. He knew when to take Charlie Adam off, when to get Naismith and Burke on. The only unforseen was the injury to the impressive Sasa Papac. On comes Christian Dailly and makes the tackle of the night deep in his own box just minutes later - great signing; transfer justified; trust in Walter.

Alan McGregor was genius. The first goal we’ve conceded in 9 games was worthy of that accolade - a fucking belter. Unstoppable. We didn’t panic. Well, those of us wearing Rangers jerseys on the pitch or club ties and blazers on the bench didn’t panic. Those of us crawling along the rain-soaked, car-packed M8 didn’t panic either - I just got depressed and thought “3-0 before I get in the hoose”. I allow myself such unfettered fatalism when not AT the game. But Rangers the team neither panicked nor gave up. They JUST KEPT GOING WITH THE PLAN.

I could have killed Boyd when he ruined that chance of a walk-in goal for Barry on the 90th minute. A simple pass into acres of open space would have put our captain through for a winner worthy of his record-equalling European appearance. When poor Boydey - absolutely knackered from leading the line in a way he’s never previously had to - knocked it, instead, straight to the only Pana defender for miles, I allowed myself one of those other indulgences offered by not being AT the game; I slagged a Rangers player rotten! I blew a gasket. I lost it. But THAT’s because THAT’s when the panic sets in - when you HAVE the result in yer grasp and just don’t want to see yer team give it away. I was going mental because we had something to LIVE for. Kris Boyd was just the unfortunate object of the unbearable tension rippling through my lard. That Pana defender turned desperate defence into scary attack but, ONCE AGAIN, the STEEL of this Gers team made itself known.

At set pieces, our own and the opposition’s, we sometimes look fucking negligent - but what’s the result? Two goals conceded in 2008 - both away from home and neither had any efect on the result. Again, I ask, WHAT TUBE said we’d take this to penalties? Does that CRETIN not know Rangers ALWAYS draw 1-1 in the Apostolos Nikolaidis stadium!!

Oh, sweet revenge for 2003/2004. Och - sod revenge - more like sweet closure. When Pana did us 3-1 at Ibrox in the winter of 2004 it was to claim the UEFA cup spot in a Champions League Group. When we drew 1-1 with them in that section, in Athens, we scored early on and looked to be coasting but WE chucked it - allowing them a late equaliser. Tonight we put THEM out the UEFA cup and did them in the same fashion on the same Athenian pitch. Now I can once again think of a proud club like Panathinaikos without too much personal footballing pain distracting me - I have a psychological plaster to apply to those previous wounds. I just hope the Teddy Bears who DID travel to this game don’t have any real wounds or the need for real plasters. It’s a scary old place and it was packed to bursting tonight: BBC Radio, when I was in the car, gave ye a far greater idea of the atmos than the TV coverage I found in the hoose. The Greeks know how to intimidate through noise like few others.

But this Ragers team CANNOT be intimidated. Right now, they cannot be beaten. Barry swept the ball out wide to Burkey - his deliciosuly vicious cross brought out a spectacular diving header from Davis, finally relased from his midfield shackles, and as Kris Boyd trailed his markers around with him the general distraction allowed Nacho to run in on the half-cleared ball: Like Ross McCormack in Porto, ye could see it all opening up in front of ye but ye daren’t say owt - ye daren’t BREATHE til ye see what Nach is gonnae do with it. Ye see Nacho is not a clinical finisher - he’s a clinical history-maker: BANG! Rifled back through the sea of green, blue and black and into the bottom of that big square Greek net. No-one chucked it tonight - Rangers just DECIDED WE WURNAE LOSING!!

I’m sorry - this is the shittest rant ever - but I’m too feking ECSTATIC tae concentrate: I live my whole sporting life to see Rangers make the best of what they have. I’m so aware of the personell quality restrictions on Scottish football - financial and genetic - that I fixate on the phrase “the value of the whole exceeds the sum of the parts”. I LIVE to see Scotland and Rangers do what so many other smaller outfits do on bigger stages - make the absolute best of what they have by knowing how to maximise yer potential. When Rangers go into March, still in the hunt for FOUR trophies, I’m getting close to dancing with Angels because I know we’re still in Europe and using our Scottish domestic domination as a BOON rather than a handicap. I was never happy with the old Scotland teams just qualifying for World Cup and Euro finals - I was never happy with Rangers just getting past Xmas in Europe. Because, in both instances, we seemed to decide it was then time to be as wee on the pitch as our country is on the atlas. That’s unescessary. Denmark and Greece have won the European championships and some really average sides have got to the UEFA Cup final (Only yoking Tic!!) - it’s so DOABLE we should always make it our ambition.

Now, at last, Rangers are getting USED to being in Europe after Christmas. We haven’t had this kind of continental consistency since the sixties for goddsakes! And we’re getting BETTER at it. I live for a European trophy at Ibrox. I live to see Rangers in a European final. It’s almost always gonnae be seen as unlikely - so nights like tonight make it a little less so - show why it should never be unlilkely. Nights like tonight make others believe as we, The Bears, BELIEVE.

More green and white reprecussions come from this result - our Scottish Cup replay against Hibs is shifted accordingly, we now have the mighty Werder Bremen and all their TV money in the next round and Celtic - who seem sure to glean some confidence from their tie with Barcelona - will know that no-one gets past The Gers this season.

This season which is turning into one long, glorious HEATWAVE.

(We’ve still won nowt though! Feet on the ground!)

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Published:
02.21.08 / 9pm
Category:
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