Rangers achieve European feat for first time in 25 years

Charlie Miller scored Rangers' seventh in the 7-2 win. Picture: SNS

Both sides led twice during a game where VAR emerged as a key protagonist.

It's not the first time Rangers have been involved in a seven-goal thriller in Europe recently.

It was only two and a bit years ago that the Ibrox side were on the wrong end of a 4-3 scoreline, going down to Spartak Moscow in the group stage.

Scottish clubs in general have been familiar with high-scoring matches in European competition recently. Hibs won 12-5 on aggregate against Faroese opponents Runavík, winning 6-1 and 6-4. In 2013, there was the infamous 7-0 defeat to Malmo at Easter Road.

Celtic have been involved in a raft of goal-laden encounters. There was a 3-3 draw with Manchester City, an 8-4 aggregate win over Astana and a 7-0 and 7-1 shellacking at the hands of Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain respectively.

However, Rangers achieved a feat on Thursday night which hasn’t been done by a Scottish club since 1996, as revealed by per SPL Stats.

They scored four goals in an away fixture at the last-32 or later stage in European competition.

Ally McCoist netted a hat-trick against Alania Vladikavkaz while Peter Van Vossen also scored. Picture: SNS

It was last achieved by a Rangers side managed by Walter Smith when they hammered Russian outfit Alania Vladikavkaz 7-2.

The match came in a qualifying round prior to the Champions League group stage. However, due to the make-up of the competition at that time, there were only 24 teams who participated with eight having qualified for the group automatically.

The win was the away leg in Vladikavkaz, not far from the border with Chechnya, and saw Ally McCoist net his first European hat-trick for the club, doing so in the first 18 minutes of the match with his opening goal arriving with 33 seconds on the clock.

Brian Laudrup scored twice with Charlie Miller and Peter Van Vossen also getting on the scoresheet.

McCoist scoring against Alania. Picture: SNS

Smith said at the time: "I would say it's my best result in my management. It's not as if they were not a good team.

"Vladikavkaz have pushed Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool close in European competition in recent years, and I expected it might be the same."