Tom English: Scottish football’s arrogance is laid bare at Ibrox

THERE’S a strange kind of arrogance in Scottish football sometimes. We spend week after week and month after month berating our players and bemoaning the product they serve up and yet, when it comes to European competition and games against teams like Maribor and Sion, there’s a sudden transformation in the national psyche, a form of collective delusion. Not everyone is afflicted, but many are.

In the blink of an eye it no longer seems to matter that Rangers had won just one of their last 24 European matches before this thundering failure or that they had won only one in the last 12 at Ibrox. It matters not a jot that Celtic’s results away from home in the Champions League and Europa League are a total abomination. No, no. It’s only Maribor, it’s only Sion. Well, for Rangers, it was only Kaunas once upon a time, it was only Unirea. And now it’s only Maribor. This is what we’ve been hearing this past week: ‘Och, if we can’t beat this lot then we might as well chuck it. . .’ It’s as if the past never existed, the lessons never learned.

Last Thursday night Rangers lost in Slovenia. The ‘pub team’ did them 2-1. Before last night nobody gave Maribor a chance. Maybe it was upon hearing the dismissive chat coming from Glasgow that a Slovenian coach had a little go at Rangers. It doesn’t matter that, in our goldfish bowl, Mariban Pusnik is a nobody manager in charge of a nobody club, SC Damash, in the middle of nowheresville but what he said was simple and instructive. “Rangers,” he remarked, “are an extremely poor team.”

All those who said that, on the evidence of the first leg, Ally McCoist’s side would have too much for the Slovenians sleep-walked their way into this mortifying night. Rangers would win, right? Based on what? A 2-1 defeat in the first leg? A ludicrously-bad run of games at home? What sparked the confidence? Even McCoist, himself, was at it. Less than 24 hours after losing in Maribor he was talking assuredly of Rangers’ passage to the group stage. “Honest to God,” he said, “I really think we’ll do it.”

A man’s got to believe, but there was little evidence to suggest that this was going to be anything other than a seriously testing night for the champions, a slow-burner of angst and anger. They are a team in transition, a team that was without some important players. Steven Naismith and Steven Whittaker were both suspended, Kyle Bartley, Davie Weir and Jamie Ness were injured, Sasa Papac was ill. Some decent operators and honest citizens in that lot. Some experience. Would they have made a difference? It doesn’t matter anymore.

All Maribor had to do was hang in there. Defend stoutly. Chase everything. Keep 11 men on the park. Be lucky. Get it to half-time without conceding, get to the hour-mark. Keep playing and wait for the crowd to turn which, of course, they did.

There are only so many near misses a support can put up with before their backing becomes a barracking. Juan Ortiz goes down in the box, but no penalty. Nikica Jelavic heads over when he could have scored. Maurice Edu heads straight at the goalkeeper when he could have scored. Kyle Lafferty is though on goal but doesn’t get enough on his shot. Another average header from Jelavic. Another wasted opportunity by Lafferty. Indecision, confusion. Where’s this goal coming from? Where?

Tick-tock goes the clock. Rangers are toiling, but it’s only Maribor. Celtic are losing in Switzerland, but it’s only Sion. Fifty minutes have gone at Ibrox and there’s a goal, not for Jelavic or Lafferty, the £7 million strikeforce leading the Rangers line but for Dalibor Volas.

Who the **** is Dalibor Volas?

It was one of those surreal goals, the kind of shot that seems to happen in slow motion, the ball hitting the net to a collective gasp at Ibrox followed by stunned silence and then fury, lots and lots of fury. Maribor led 3-1 on aggregate. McCoist stood in his technical area and gazed at an unfolding nightmare. Where was Jelavic, his go-to man up front? Where was Steven Davis, his schemer in midfield? There was endeavour in the Rangers team, there was hustle and bustle, there was commitment. But where was the quality?

On nights like this you need players like Jelavic and Davis to deliver. These are the stars, such as they are. When the Northern Ireland midfielder cut in from the right early in the second half he should have pulled the trigger and blasted a shot on goal. He had to shoot. Had to. He delayed. And delayed. And the chance went. Another fine opportunity cast into the night sky.

Finally, they scored. Not Jelavic or Lafferty, not the £7 million men, but a defender, Carlos Bocanegra, and the great siege of Maribor continued. David Healy came off the bench and reminded us why he has had such a miniscule presence at this club since he joined. Seventy-eight minutes gone and Healy found himself one-on-one with Jasmin Hanandovic in the Maribor goal. Had to score. Didn’t. Thank you, David. And goodnight. Cue outrage and torment and remaining minutes that brought a penalty appeal, a Lafferty near-thing, a scramble in the box, but no second goal, no chance of extra-time, no shot at redemption.

At the end, there was a brief uprising in the stands, a few moments of thunder before everyone disappeared to the pub, to the internet, to the seventh circle of footballing hell that Scottish teams know only too well. For McCoist and the confidence he had of progress in this tournament there was nothing to do but vanish up the tunnel and leave Maribor to their whooping and hollering, their revelling in a deserted and ghostly Ibrox.

Rangers: One European win in 25. One home win in 13. Remind me, who’s the pub team?