'Familiar foes Malmo are ultimate Scottish bogey team'

Malmo have knocked Rangers out of Champions League qualifying twice in the past 13 years

Europa League: Malmo v Rangers

When: Thursday, 26 September Where: Eleda Stadion, Malmo Kick-off: 17:45 BST

Coverage: Live commentary on BBC Radio Scotland & live text on BBC Sport website and app

You would not think the eclectic Swedish city of Malmo would bring Scottish football fans out in a cold sweat.

However, the cosmopolitan conurbation in the country’s southern Skane province has been a graveyard for plenty of European dreams in recent years before Rangers begin their Europa League campaign there on Thursday.

Indeed, it is perhaps the Ibrox club that has the most reason to be fearful having come a cropper there twice in the past 12 years.

But it is not just they who have suffered at Malmo’s hands. Celtic and Hibernian have also been beaten on the Swedish side of the Oresund Bridge, which links Malmo with the Danish capital Copenhagen.

They are Scotland’s ultimate European bogey team.

Can Rangers get revenge?

In the wake of Walter Smith’s league and League Cup double in 2011, the Ibrox legend handed the baton to his successor, assistant and fellow-Rangers behemoth Ally McCoist.

Such was the dire state of Scotland's coefficient in those days, the league champions had to come through two qualifying rounds to get a sniff of the Champions League.

And so McCoist was handed a third qualifying-round tie with Malmo.

The new Rangers boss would have been confident of progress, but it was not to be.

They met again in 2021 at the same stage of the same tournament, but Steven Gerrard’s side lost both legs, with striker Antonio Colak impressing and scoring in the tie a year before making the move to Rangers.

While their well-documented financial implosion followed the first tie, a European final followed the second as Rangers dropped into the Europa League and made it all the way to Seville under the guidance of Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

As Ronny Deila and Pat Fenlon will also testify to, Malmo can be a tough nut to crack with their respective Celtic and Hibs sides losing ties to the Swedes.

Helander predicts 'strong' Malmo

The signs are there that Rangers’ latest battle with them will be just as challenging as the previous two as Malmo career towards retaining their Allsvenskan title with ease.

They are currently 11 points clear of Djurgardens with just six games to play of their campaign, having scraped to the championship last year, defying Elfsborg on goal difference before the runners-up head coach, Jimmy Thelin, made his switch to Aberdeen.

Former Rangers and Malmo defender Filip Helander told BBC Scotland’s Scottish Football Podcast: "It's a solid team that has a lot of experience.

"They've been playing in Europe a lot of years. They've got some experienced players. They're in good form, I would say.

"They're leading the top of the table in the Swedish league with quite good margin. So it's a very, very strong team.

"They get a good atmosphere at home and I think it will be a tough game for Rangers. But also I think it's a game that can go either way."

Rangers have never defeated Swedish opposition in six attempts

Malmo’s main man is number nine Isaac Kiese Thelin, who has just returned from injury. He has scored 14 this season and the Sweden international got back to scoring ways as they rattled four unanswered goals past 2022 champions Hacken in their most recent match.

So too did Erik Botheim, a forward who came through the Norwegian youth system with international colleague Erling Haaland, now of course of Manchester City, while their Danish captain, Anders Christiansen, helped himself to a double.

Sweden Under-21s winger Hugo Bolin is having a fine season, while at the back, former Leeds United centre-back Pontus Jansen faces Rangers again having taken part in those games 13 years ago during his first spell at the club.

He normally has another extremely experienced player in Jens Stryger-Larsen beside him at right-back. The 33-year-old played all six games for Denmark on their way to the semi-finals of Euro 2020.

Coach Henrik Rydstrom has improved the club’s fortunes after they failed to qualify for Europe in 2022 with a disappointing seventh-placed finish.

This term has been relatively seamless, though.

They have won 10 of their 11 home league games and are pretty miserly defensively, having conceded just 19 goals in their 26 Allsvenskan outings, the vast majority of which have come on the road.

Rydstrom’s only real disappointment was their Champions League play-off defeat by Sparta Prague, which may offer Rangers a more realistic sense of where Malmo are in European terms.

And there is little doubt that this is Rangers’ most winnable away fixture out of the four they were handed for the new-look Europa League with games at Nice, Olympiakos and Manchester United to come.

McCoist will be back in the stadium for this one, only this time, possibly, without the cold sweat.