Bt Alistair Aird
After securing a top eight finish in the revamped Europa League group stage, Rangers know they will face one of four possible opponents in the last 16. They will either be drawn against FC Twente Enschede, Fenerbahçe, Anderlecht or FK Bodo/Glimt. While we have yet met the Norwegians in a European tie, Rangers have had previous encounters against the other three.
This is the fourth piece in this week’s series of articles, one which looks at some fixtures Rangers have had in European competition against opposition from Norway.
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The first encounter came back in the late 1970s where a tactical masterclass from John Greig helped navigate what proved to be a difficult tie. And then there was a trip to Molde in 2006 that featured the European debut of our record appearance holder in European competition, Allan McGregor.
Rangers have yet to have the pleasure of welcoming Bodo/Glimt to Ibrox for a European tie although our fans should be familiar with the exploits of Glimt – which means ‘flash’ – the last time they visited Glasgow in 2022. Drawn against Celtic in the last 16 of the Europa Conference League, they stormed ‘fortress’ Parkhead and won by three goals to one in the first leg. And as if to prove that it wasn’t a ‘flash’ in the pan, Glimt won the second leg comfortably too to inflict upon Celtic the latest in a long line of European humiliations.
While Rangers haven’t faced Bodo/Glimt yet, they have had previous encounters against teams from Norway. And the first of those came in the Preliminary Round of the European Cup Winners Cup in season 1979/80.
Having narrowly missed out on what have been an unprecedented back-to-back Treble in John Greig’s first season as manager, Rangers went into the new season looking to snare all three major domestic trophies and go deep into the latter stages of the European Cup Winners’ Cup too. They were expected to comfortably progress into the first-round proper of the latter competition when they were drawn against Lillestrom Sportsklubb in the Preliminary Round.
Based in a city just over 13 miles outside Oslo, Lillestrom were founded in 1917, they had been champions of Norway three times – 1959, 1976 and 1977 – and won two Norwegian Cups. The last of those, secured with a 2-1 win over SK Brann in the Final – confirmed The Canaries place in the European Cup Winners Cup.
Rangers had already won a trophy by the time they faced Lillestrom at Ibrox. Wins over Berwick Rangers and Kilmarnock had taken Greig’s side through to the Final of the Drybrough Cup where they would face Celtic. And that match would witness three fine goals. John McDonald, who would end the season as Scotland’s Young Player of the Year, opened the scoring and Sandy Jardine ran almost the full length of the pitch to net Rangers’ second goal. But the piece de resistance was provided by Davie Cooper when he juggled the ball away from several despairing challenges before slotting it behind Peter Latchford.
The Light Blues had faced Celtic again three days before the Lillestrom tie. And, leading 2-0 against 10 men with seven minutes remaining, they looked well placed to take maximum points from the league match at Ibrox. But late goals from Sneddon and McAdam earned Celtic a share of the spoils and kickstart a run that would see Rangers win just four of their next 13 league fixtures.
Lillestrom made their intentions clear from the outset in front of 25,000 at Ibrox. They built a watertight, yellow-shirted defensive dam that Rangers only managed to breach once. Gordon Smith got the goal after 13 minutes, but thereafter the visiting goalkeeper, Arne Amundsen, was rarely troubled. Only after Greig decided to bring on John McDonald for Tommy McLean and Chris Robertson, brother of the soon-to-be Hearts legend, John, for Derek Johnstone did Rangers inject some purpose and pace into their play to test Amundsen. But he was able to repel all that was thrown at him which meant Rangers had a slender, single-goal advantage to take to Norway for the return leg.
In the interim, Rangers defeated Clyde by four goals to nil in the League Cup and lost 2-1 against Partick Thistle at Firhill. Jim Melrose and Colin McAdam, who signed for Rangers the following season, scored for The Jags, with Derek Johnstone netting for a Rangers side that were defied on several occasions by a magnificent display from Alan Rough.
The Rangers starting XI that took to the field in Lillestrom showed one change from the first leg. Davie Cooper dropped to the bench and Alex Miller came in. Adopting what Alan Davidson of the Evening Times called the ‘perfect strategy’, Miller slotted in at right back, Ally Dawson at left back and Sandy Jardine was alongside Colin Jackson at the heart of the defence. Tommy McLean was given what Greig called ‘a roving commission’ and the set up nullified any hopes the Norwegians had of upsetting the apple cart. Alex MacDonald scored four minutes before half time and Derek Johnstone added the finish touch to a comfortable 3-0 aggregate win late in the game.
Greig had previous for tactical nous in Europe. The previous season he had masterminded victories over Juventus and PSV Eindhoven, and he got it spot on again when Fortuna Dusseldorf were edged out in the next round. But even Greig’s masterplan couldn’t curb the threat of the great Mario Kempes when Rangers drew Valencia in the next round. A 1-1 draw in the first leg in Spain offered hope of progression, but at Ibrox, the Argentinian World Cup winner was unplayable. He scored twice in a 3-1 win and Rangers were eliminated by the team who would go all the way to the Final where they defeated Arsenal on penalties.
Three days after losing to Valencia, Rangers were beaten 2-1 by St Mirren at Love Street. It would be the first of three successive defeats in the league. Already out of the League Cup – Aberdeen had won 5-1 on aggregate in round three – the last of those three losses, 3-1 against Dundee at Dens Park, left Rangers sixth on the league ladder, eight points adrift of joint leaders Celtic and Morton.
The three straight wins that followed proved to be a false dawn. Rangers lost seven and drew four of their last 18 league games. In a parallel to this current season, home form was fine – Rangers dropped nine points at Ibrox which was less than champions Aberdeen who dropped 12 points at Pittodrie – but away form was abysmal. Greig’s lost 12 of their 18 matches ‘on the road’ and eventually finished in fifth place, 11 points behind Aberdeen and 10 adrift of runner-up Celtic. Their final tally of 37 points was only one better than Partick Thistle who finished seventh.
Rangers wouldn’t travel to Norway again for a fixture in one of the major European competitions until 2006 when they were drawn against Molde FK in the first round. And this encounter would prove to be a first crack at Europe for new manager Paul Le Guen and would also witness the first of Allan McGregor’s 109 European appearances for Rangers.
Le Guen had arrived in the summer with a fantastic pedigree. Capped 17 times by France as a player, Le Guen had led Olympique Lyonnais to three successive Ligue 1 titles and the last eight of the Champions League. Hopes were high that he would be the man to elevate Rangers into the higher realm of European football, but it was cataclysmic failure. Although he took his side to Norway for the first leg unbeaten in the league, three of the six matches played had been drawn. Play had at times been beguiling and breathtaking, but there had been errors in equal measure, particularly from Le Guen’s recently recruited goalkeeper, Lionel Letizi.
Letizi was unavailable for the trip to Molde, a town in the Romsdal district located some 218 miles from Oslo. He had picked up a calf strain, so Le Guen handed the gloves to McGregor. And the young Scot proved not for the last time to be a safe pair of hands as he produced several fine saves to thwart a dominant home side. In the end, a less than impressive Rangers were perhaps fortunate to return home unscathed after a 0-0 draw.
Rangers played two league games before they welcomed Molde to Ibrox for the return leg. Both were lost, 2-1 against Hibernian at Easter Road and 2-0 against Celtic at Parkhead. The Le Guen Effect was clearly not as impactful as many hoped it would be.
His side would return to winning ways against Molde, although Le Guen would once again be indebted to McGregor who turned in a man-of-the-match performance. Thomas Buffel and Barry Ferguson scored the goals that saw Rangers through to the group stages and the manager expressed his ‘relief’ after the game while admitting that his side had ‘conceded too many chances.’ And then there was the question of his number one, would he keep faith with the outstanding McGregor or revert to Letizi once his compatriot was fit again?
Le Guen told the media, ‘I am very pleased with Allan, and I want each player to be able to compete for a place in the team. I hope that Lionel will be fit as early as possible. But it’s too early to speak of anything else. We must take it step by step. It’s my job to decide. I love the fans and I respect the crowd but it is up to me to make the team selection.’
Ultimately, his decision regarding his goalkeeper of choice backfired and set in motion a chain of events that saw Le Guen relieved of his duties by January.
Although McGregor had been voted ‘Player of the Month for September, Le Guen decided to reinstate Letizi for a league match against Inverness Caledonian Thistle at Ibrox. But the Frenchman flopped again, his error presenting Graham Bayne with the chance to net the only goal of the game. He would keep the gloves for another three games, but after shipping five goals in those matches – 3-2 wins over AS Livorno and St Mirren and 1-1 draw against Motherwell – Le Guen eventually ceded to pressure to bring back McGregor.
But by then, the damage had been done. Simmering unrest in the dressing room eventually boiled over when Le Guen dropped Barry Ferguson and stripped him of the captaincy. Had he had credit in the bank, such a seismic decision may have gathered support. But much like our current manager, Le Guen was trading with negative equity.
He too had done well in Europe – the aggregate win over Molde had been followed by three wins and a draw in the group stages which secured passage to the knockout stages – but domestically, it was dire. By the time Le Guen took charge of Rangers for the last time on 2 January at Fir Park, Rangers had dropped points in 12 of their 22 league games. In the two matches prior to the 1-0 win over Motherwell, the Light Blues had lost away to Inverness and drawn at home to St Mirren. That form plus key protagonists in the dressing room turning against him made Le Guen’s position untenable. He left in January which paved the way for the second coming of a saviour called Walter Ferguson Smith.
There are several parallels between the ill-fated tenure of Le Guen and that of the current incumbent of the Manager’s Office at Ibrox, Phillipe Clement. Both were more than capable of sending out sides that could eke out results in Europe, but both could also perplex the Rangers support with bizarre team selections and decisions made domestically. European elation came hand in hand with domestic drudgery.
Le Guen, however, did lose key elements within the dressing room and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for him. It is unclear now if Clement has done likewise as indeed is the answer to the question of what it will take for the Belgian to be dismissed. The humiliating, history-making loss to Queen’s Park in the Scottish Cup should have been the nadir. Having plumbed new depths, that should have been the point of no return.
However, the bungling Belgian looks like he will still be in charge when we face either FC Twente Enschede, RSC Anderlecht, Fenerbahçe or FK Bodo/Glimt in early March. Irrespective, surely only making the Europa League final and winning the trophy in Bilbao will save him now. The longest stay of execution in our history continues.