AFTER last night's European games – Sunday's Viaplay League Cup Final is warming-up nicely. As if the stupidity of Rangers' PR department, in taking bookings for fans to be photographed with the trophy – five days before the game – wasn't enough motivation for Aberdeen, building on that superb win over Eintracht Frankfurt should be. The confidence they will have gained from beating the Germans will surely lift their performance at Hampden.
However, a first win against a Spanish side, in Spain; a first time scoring three goals in Spain; topping their group; a place in the last 16 of the Europa League – how much of a confidence boost have these successes given Rangers?
Celtic might have “won ugly” at home to Feyenoord, in contrast, Rangers' win against Real Betis came at the end of a thoroughly-entertaining game, between two teams with something to go for – who went for it. Phillipe Clement is clearly turning the troubled club around.
But, this is still a flawed team. One or two of the players continue to give the impression they are NRC – Not Rangers Class. That said, the squad still appears happier playing in Europe than in the domestic game.
One of the new guys who definitely is Rangers Class is Jack Butland. I reckoned when the club's interest in the former England goalkeeper was announced, they ought to save the money by promoting young Scotland squad goalkeeper Robbie McCrorie.
They still signed Butland, who has since getting the Number One jersey, shown he is right up there among the great former net-minding heroes of the club, with a series of big saves, at crucial times.
For his sake, it would be nice if Rangers found themselves in a “Battle of Britain” clash with one of the English Premiership sides still involved in the Europa League. Such a fixture, coming as it would do, in the last eight or later, would surely attract Gareth Southgate, who could then be reminded of Butland's qualities.
I should write at this point – the criticism I aimed at the team from the East End of Glasgow, applies too to the one from Govan. They are over-paying for players who come under-talented and the continued aversion to giving young Scottish players a crack at the first team will, in the long run, cost them dear.
No Scottish club can afford to spend, spend, spend – all the clubs, and in particular the Big Two, need to realise, grow your own suits the economics of the Scottish game a lot better than buying players with a fancy name and a slick highlights reel.
I doubt if anyone outwith Pittodrie, and perhaps one or two in there as well, saw that Aberdeen win last night coming. Come to that, after sticking five goals on Bayern Munich at the weekend, I don't suppose many of the good burghers of Frankfurt saw defeat in Aberdeen coming as well.
Where's dear old Jimmy Greaves when we need him, those two results prove his old thesis - “Football really is a funny old game.” Bayern are the second-ranked team in Europe, Eintracht are ranked 25th. Putting that in domestic Scottish terms, that result on Sunday was the equivalent of Cove Rangers beating Glasgow Rangers.
Aberdeen are sitting at position 148 in UEFA's Club Co-efficient table. It's difficult to extrapolate that figure down through the levels of the Scottish Football Pyramid, however, as close as I can get is probably that Aberdeen's win was the equivalent of Neilston or Leith Athletic, struggling a bit in the basement regions of the West of Scotland First Division and the East of Scotland First Division respectively – that's Level Seven by the way beating Cove.
Received wisdom in certain areas of Scottish Fitba is that Aberdeen only really play when facing Rangers, another reason for looking forward to Sunday's final. I reckon, however, their up and down domestic form is more down to the fact, apart from the perennial front runners, any one of the other teams in the top ten is capable, in any fixture, of beating any other side.
That has to be a sign of good health. Unfortunately in Scotland, since the “diddy teams” bought into the Graeme Souness Management Model, the quality in the game up here has gone downhill alarmingly, as we have bought-in cheap foreign knock-offs of good players.
But, looking forward to Sunday, with two flawed teams on the park, we might get a cracking game.
OF COURSE, they never let the facts get in the way of publishing or broadcasting pish, but even the cheer-leaders of “The Greatest League in the World” - that's the English Premiership in case you've forgotten, will be hard-pushed to spout their rubbish when you look at the 16 qualifiers for the knock-out rounds of the European Cup.
They are: Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Real Sociedad (Spain); Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig (Germany); Inter Milan, Lazio, Napoli (Italy); Arsenal, Manchester City (England); Copenhagen (Denmark); PSG (France); FC Porto (Portugal); PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands).
Only two English clubs left, compared with four Spanish, three German and three Italian clubs. Not so great, is it.
Rangers can put their European campaign on the back burner until late February. The draw for the last 16 of the Europa League will be held, in UEFA HQ in Switzerland on 23 February.
The Ibrox club already know they will be one of the eight seeded teams, the others – the other Group Winners will be: Brighton, Liverpool, West Ham United (England); Atalanta (Italy); Bayern Leverkusen (Germany); Slavia Prague (Czechoslovakia); Villarreal (Spain). One or two bullets dodged there for Phillipe Clement and his boys.
However, they could meet one of the eight winners from the play-off round, where the 16 teams involved are - (Seeded Teams): Marseilles, Rennes, Toulouse (France); Freiburg (Germany); Roma (Italy); Qarabag (Azerbaijan); Sparta Prague (Czechoslovakia); Sporting Lisbon (Portugal).
The eight unseeded teams are: Benfica, Braga (Portugal); Feyenoord (Netherlands); Galatasaray (Turkey); Lens (France), AC Milan (Italy), Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine); Young Boys Berne (Switzerland).
There are one or two potential banana skins among the clubs who have to go down the play-off route to further European progress.
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