The Scottish Fitba Writers Don't Do Irony - Or Intelligence

THE CREATURE that dare not speak its name – in the Scottish media in 2022, that would be R*ng*rs FC. Now, officially, or so the Scottish fitba media would have us believe – the worst team in the history of the Champions League.

Except, if we wait until the Season 2022-23 European Cup winners – you know, the team which wins the final of the whole damned thing and gets to lift that huge trophy, we will find that R*ng*rs are actually only the 32^nd worst team in Europe this season.

OK, their record in the group stage – played 6, lost 6, goals scored 2, goals conceded 22, left them bottom of Group A and with a negative goal difference one goal worse than that of the Czech Republic side Viktoria Pizeñ, who under-pinned Group C, but – they did go further in the competition than:

PSV Eindhoven (remember, the team they knocked-out in the play-off round), Dynamo Kyiv, Qarabag, Bodø/Glint, Red Star Belgrade and Trabzonspor – who also exited at this stage.

Then we have Apollon Limassol, Ferencváros, Ludogorets Razgrad, Sheriff Tiraspol, Zalgiris, Pyunik, Monaco, Sturm Graz, Union Saint-Gilloise (eliminated by some team called R*ng*rs) and Midtjylland – who departed the competition after the third qualifying round.

Neither should we forget: Slovan Bratislava, Shkupi, FC Zurich, HJK, Linfield, Malmö FF, Shamrock Rovers, Maribor, Olympiacos, F91 Dudelange, AEK Larneka and Fenerbahçe, none of whom got past the second qualifying round.

I could add the 15 teams who departed the competition in the first qualifying round, back in July, or the other three teams who exited in the preliminary round in June, but, while one or two of the teams name-checked above have reasonable European pedigree, I have to concede these 18 clubs definitely come into the “diddy teams” category.

So, while our soccer scribes conform to central casting-style typecasting and rail against the affront which R*ng*rs' Champions League performance this season has caused to the glorious name of Scottish fitba – can I suggest: maybe we should get real.

We Scots revel in watching, every four years, our English neighbours work themselves up into a frothing lather at the prospect of bringing football home via a World Cup win. How we love reminding them, they haven't won the thing since 1966 – 56 years ago.

Well, when it comes to the European Cup, it's now 55 years since Celtic won it, 52 years since they (Celtic) were last in the final and as for R*ng*rs, it's now 62 years since their best European Cup performance, when they reached the 1959-60 semi-final, where they lost 4-12 to Eintracht Frankfurt.

WHEN I was a lad, how the media covered Scottish Football was somewhat different from how it is done today. One of the biggest differences was, back then the “Fans With Typewriters” were mostly staunch Protestants, given to wearing brown brogues and showing a bias towards the blue portion of Glasgow.

Today, 'The Lap Top Loyal' does not have the influence it had in the bygone days of yore, and, increasingly, the Celtic Apologists are setting the media agenda. This was never clearer than in the reaction to the Bigot Brothers' exodus from Europe this week.

As outlined above, R*ng*rs crashed out with the worst record in the history of the group stages: bottom of their group, six straight defeats, the classic score of British competitors in Europe: “nil point”, -20 goal difference and a load of abuse.

This left Celtic claiming the moral high ground with the sterling record of: bottom of their group, two draws and four defeats from their six games, two points and a goal difference of -11.

OK, R*ng*rs' record in the group this season is terrible, they finished as the worst of the 32 clubs in the group stage. Celtic fans can crow at their rivals' discomfort from the elevated position of having finished 30^th of the 32 clubs in the eight groups.

Eight of the thirty-two clubs: Celtic, R*ng*rs, Atletico Madrid, FC Copenhagen, Dinamo Zagreb, Maccabi Haifa, Marseilles and Viktoria Pizeñ are now out of Europe, doesn't it say a lot about Scottish football that they provide one quarter of these “failures.”

Then, on Thursday, with an inevitability we all saw coming, Hearts lost in Turkey, and, while they finished third in their Europa Conference League group – they had lang syne known their European campaign would be over after the game.

Then came ironies of ironies – the final reckoning, which showed that for all Celtic's feelings of superiority, R*ng*rs had actually done more to uphold Scotland's European co-efficient. Indeed, while R*ng*rs finished their 2022-23 European campaign with a 20% wins rate, Celtic finished without a victory. Adding further insult to injury, the Blue cheek of the erse of Scottiosh football contributed a greater number of co-efficient points than did the supposedly superior green cheek.

It is indeed a funny old game Saint.

IF we had an NFL-style pan-European “Superleague”, bringing together the top clubs in the top football cities in Europe, there is a chance a combined Glasgow club could be in there and competitive. However, for all their massive home supports, the reality is, The Bigot Brothers are upper mid-level clubs, operating in a league which is something of a backwater.

That situation is not going to change, far-less improve any time soon, if ever. So, the best they can perhaps hope for is the occasional run to the knock-out stages of the European Cup, with tilts at the Europa League as their most-realistic chance of making waves in Europe.

In that case, as I have said before, they should both stop wasting money on fourth, third and occasionally second-rate imports and instead get their Academies working properly and bringing through young Scottish talent. That's their way ahead, 21 century Lisbon Lions and Barcelona Bears who want to play for the jerseys, rather than badge kissers who are only in it for themselves, quite happy to take an inflated wage packet – by Scottish standards, because they are not good enough for better leagues.