Europa League: 'Rangers leading double life as Celtic seek treble to salve exit wounds'
- Published
Ryan Kent's second-leg winner in Braga helped to extend Rangers' European run
There were a number of teams in the draw for the last 16 of the Europa League that Rangers might have been favourites to beat. Alas, they didn't get one of those teams.
They got Bayer Leverkusen, who did Porto in cold blood in the last round, who went to the Bayern Munich of Robert Lewandowski, Thomas Muller and Serge Gnabry in the autumn and beat them 2-1 and who a few weeks ago hosted the Borussia Dortmund of Erling Braut Haaland, Axel Witsel and Jadon Sancho and beat them 4-3.
Leverkusen lie fifth in the Bundesliga, only six points off the behemoths of Bayern. There are no galacticos in their squad but they're a resilient and talented lot, led by the experienced Bender twins, Lars and Sven, who was formerly of Jurgen Klopp's Dortmund, and Kevin Volland, their leading goalscorer.
The youth of the team is seriously impressive. Kai Havertz is only 20 and is seen as a prodigious talent who scored 17 goals in the Bundesliga last season. Havertz was capped by Germany amid the goal spree, scoring in a friendly against Argentina.
Moussa Diaby, a 20-year-old from France, is a midfielder of vast promise. Daley Sinkgraven, formerly of Ajax and a bit-part player in the Dutch side's run to the Champions League semi-final last season, is another who Rangers fans will start learning all about now that they know their fate.
Germans a formidable but achievable test
The Germans will be favourites to progress but that won't bother Rangers one iota. In fact, it will help them. Legia Warsaw, Feyenoord, Porto and Braga would all have been deemed superior to Steven Gerrard's team on paper this season but Rangers saw them all off.
They've made a habit of upsetting the odds in Europe this season and here's another mountain to climb. Formidable, but achievable if they get their stuff right. An exciting free hit.
Rangers are leading a double life right now, confident in Europe and vulnerable domestically. They comfortably put away Braga, a team that has already beaten Spartak Moscow, Wolves, Besiktas, Porto, Sporting and Benfica, and yet Rangers recently toiled in defeat against Kilmarnock, seventh in Scotland, and Hearts, bottom of the Premiership.
They lost to Hearts despite having Jermain Defoe up front. They got beaten by Killie despite having Alfredo Morelos in from the start. They beat Braga without the pair of them. Rangers are not easy to analyse. Leverkusen will find that out soon enough.
The performance that Rangers put in against Braga on Wednesday was substantial, not just because of the way they won but also because of the weight of games they're now playing through. Since football resumed post-break, Rangers have played 12 games in 41 days. They've gone Friday-Wednesday-Sunday-Wednesday-Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday-Wednesday-Sunday-Thursday-Sunday-Wednesday. That's a ferocious run of games, all of them must-win, all of them carrying a heavy burden.
They've been beaten up by poor performances and lost points. The league is more or less out of reach now. They've had to deal with the fallout from their supporters and their manager, who has destroyed them publicly more than once. Given all of that, to have the energy levels and the craft and self-belief to do what they did to Braga - a one-goal win going on three or more - was impressive.
It does beg a question about the amount of football that players in Scotland are expected to play. The top four most-played footballers in the world this season in terms of minutes on the field, for club and country, all operate out of the Scottish Premiership - Callum McGregor, Kristoffer Ajer, Connor Goldson and Scott Brown. There are two more in the top 10 - Allan McGregor and James Forrest - and five more in the top 100 - Odsonne Edouard, James Tavernier, Christopher Jullien, Scott Arfield, Borna Barisic and Joe Aribo.
Collective loss of plot cost Celtic
None of this is relevant to Celtic now, because they're out of Europe, so that's one less competition to think about. Theirs was a largely self-imposed exit on Thursday evening against the high-pressing visitors from Copenhagen. It was as if the Danes, when putting together their gameplan, ate the DVD of Celtic's demise from the Champions League at the hands of Cluj because history repeated on the night.
Neil Lennon refused to throw his players under the bus, but he was almost shocked by what happened out there. There might be criticism of the team he picked and the formation he deployed but the simple fact is that if Mohamed Elyounoussi scores to make it 2-1 on aggregate, as he probably should have done, and Edouard scores to make it 3-1 on aggregate just before half-time, as he definitely should have done, then Copenhagen would have been on the floor.
Celtic didn't give confidence to the Danes once or twice, they did it four and five times with their wastefulness down one end and their defensive slapstick down the other. The collective loss of plot and all-round panic cost them a place in the last 16.
The sense of an opportunity needlessly lost was huge. They threw away the good work they'd done when beating Lazio home and away. Lazio currently sit second in Serie A, just one point behind Juventus, a side they've played twice this season, league and cup, and have beaten 3-1 and 3-1 again.
Celtic's form in beating Lazio marked them out not just as last-16 contenders, but last eight and last four, but they blew their chances sky high with that wretched second half against Copenhagen.
They retreat now into the comfort of domestic dominance. Another treble will eradicate the memory of Thursday night. That's been the way of it. Nobody talks now about their 7-0 loss to Barcelona in Brendan Rodgers' first season or the 7-1 defeat to PSG in his second or the loss to AEK Athens in his third - the success trumped all of that.
That's what Lennon is going for. They have a huge cup tie against St Johnstone on Sunday and a chance to get back on track. Before Thursday they had three bad moment this season - the Champions League exit to Cluj and the league losses to Livingston and Rangers - and responded to all three with winning sequences. Tommy Wright will be steeling himself.
More of the same will tie up the league and may well bring them another Scottish Cup. That's how Celtic people will rationalise it today. Rangers have their own things to deal with and those things aren't going away, but in Europe they have clear blue skies and a tie to relish. They deserve to be there and Celtic don't. You won't find much common ground between the two sets of supporters, but they'll surely agree on that if nothing else.
Defensive errors contributed to Celtic's exit against Copenhagen