Celtic fans claim Espanyolification of Rangers as hooped Pacman threatens to gobble up milestone trophy

Like liquidation, Espanyolification is a word that arouses strong emotions down Ibrox way. And no wonder.

In both cases, they involve emotive subjects. Much of the ire centres around whether either word really applies to Rangers. The first might even be considered a red herring – does it really matter now?

Spurs will argue that it looked and felt like they were playing the proper Rangers as they just about avoided coming to grief at a proper, noisy Ibrox on Thursday night. The London club's website, when detailing past meetings, were happy to include the only other time the teams had met competitively in 1962, in the Cup-Winners' Cup.

History is not bunk. Especially when those from both sides of the great Glasgow divide are totting up trophies. With Celtic and Rangers preparing to meet each other in the League Cup final, and without getting bogged down in any new club-old club debate, the tally currently stands at 118 each.

Kyogo Furuhashi celebrates after Celtic's 3-0 win over Rangers earlier this season. | SNS Group

Despite the Ibrox side’s spirited display against Spurs, their Old Firm rivals are heavy favourites. Celtic have won as many as seven of the last nine trophies. They are a green-and-white hooped Pacman gobbling up honours like dots in a maze in the 1980s arcade game. Celtic seem to be employing a similar multiple when it comes to lifting cups as former Rangers owner David Murray used when pledging to spend £10 for every £5 spent by the Parkhead club. Only they are doing so to even more excess.

Murray's braggadocio set Rangers on a ruinous course. Which in turn brings us to Espanyolification, a clunky word coined – by Celtic fans, surprise, surprise – to describe an arrangement where one team is seemingly condemned to be forever in the shadow of another from the same city. As has been Espanyol's sorry fate.

Even though they are in the same league as Barcelona, and the teams played each other as recently as last month, it's hard to see a situation where Espanyol being the lesser force will ever change. So it certainly packs a punch when Espanyol are cited in reference to Rangers.

It was once unthinkable that the Ibrox club, who were sailing in clear blue waters as recently as the millennium, could be pegged back by Celtic on the trophy count. They were 21 major honours ahead at the end of the last century. They then collected their 100th major title against Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup in May 2000. Where were Celtic? Languishing on 76 trophies, that’s where.

The appointment of Martin O’Neill a few weeks after that Hampden cup final did hint at better days to come. Nevertheless, no one could have foreseen just how dramatically the Ibrox club’s lead would be whittled down. Neither could anyone imagine the circumstances helping Celtic along the way, with Rangers plunged into financial catastrophe in 2012.

It was the chance their rivals, who had their own brush with oblivion in the 1990s, needed to do some much needed catching up. Celtic won just one league title between 1947 and 1965. Rangers won ten. In that same period, Rangers won eight Scottish Cups to Celtic’s three. Added to the mix was the League Cup, which the Ibrox club won six times in the competition’s first 20 years. Celtic, meanwhile, won only four. Rangers held an advantage not even Jock Stein’s arrival could wipe out.

Something must give on Sunday as the Ibrox side lock horns with Celtic for possession of the League Cup, with Rangers the current holders. That was a rare bright spot for them since the undoubted high of a Europa League final appearance in 2022. Their rivals have meanwhile continued to make steady inroads into the honours distribution count to the extent that they can edge ahead tomorrow for the first time since early 1939. This would represent a seismic readjustment of an old order.

For once, the breathless enthusiasm of the hype merchants in the run-up to kick-off is merited: This is historic! This means more! Or does it? Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers was asked to consider this tremulous point of history at his pre-match press conference on Friday. Despite the fact he could become the first Celtic manager since Willie Maley to enjoy a clear lead over Rangers when it comes to trophies, he almost shrugged. “We want to win as many trophies as we can,” he said. “You don't necessarily have to tell everyone... We just want to win and win well and then hopefully get into our next game and look to the next trophy.”

Classic manager-speak basically, wrapped around a subtle jibe. Over at Rangers, manager Philippe Clement welcomed journalists to a training base that has “the world’s most successful football club” written along one corridor. This boast is already out of date. The Ibrox club might not even be the most successful club in their own city come Sunday evening.

Adam Idah drew Celtic level with Rangers on trophies during May's Scottish Cup final with the winner. | SNS Group

It therefore seemed incumbent to speak to club historians and discover their take on the matter. David Mason, for Rangers, believes the financial situation faced by the Ibrox club has “distorted” the race. “In general, the clubs have competed for all the trophies every year but, during those years when we had to climb our way back up, we could not compete,” he said. “Celtic had a free run at it. In that sense there’s an asterisk against it anyway.” He stressed that he would “not lose sleep over it either way” and noted that Celtic moving ahead in the race would be "incidental" next to the greater issue of losing cup final they might now have greater hope they can win.

"I don’t think we ever made a lot of it (being ahead)," he added. "Maybe you did when you were at school – you were like, 'we have won more Scottish Cups than Celtic!' But over the broader context, and despite the fact I am the historian, I realise the most important period is always the present. And that’s what people will focus on.

"Trebles have become more important," he continued. "They demonstrate dominance. I am not getting hung up on it. If we lose on Sunday I will just be disappointed that we have lost the cup. If we win I will be celebrating the fact we have won a League Cup and stopped Celtic winning a possible treble."

Pat Woods, the well-respected author of a host of Celtic books, is surprisingly circumspect about what some contend is Scottish football’s equivalent of shifting tectonic plates. He recalled attending an Old Firm derby at New Year in 1965, which Celtic lost. They had only recently been beaten in the League Cup final by Rangers and hadn't won a trophy since 1957. "They were already in despair then all of a sudden Jock Stein came in and the whole landscape changed."

Even then, Rangers still held sway. Murray, Woods said, made a “terrible misjudgement”. He added: “Who knows what might have happened otherwise?” Who knows indeed.