Rangers reaction: Dancing in the streets of ....Zagreb, Happy 50th Alfred and new Ibrox day of Infamy

Rangers’ Champions League adventure came to a sorry end last night with another defeat in Group A – their sixth successive reversal. Ajax left with a deserved 3-1 win and the Ibrox side earned the unwanted title of worst-ever Champions League team.
Alex MacDonald (left), seen here against Celtic, scored for Rangers in a famous victory on 1 November 1978Alex MacDonald (left), seen here against Celtic, scored for Rangers in a famous victory on 1 November 1978
Alex MacDonald (left), seen here against Celtic, scored for Rangers in a famous victory on 1 November 1978

Dancing in the streets of Zagreb

Dinamo Zagreb do not play until tonight when they face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in a Champions League Group E fixture but there has already been dancing in the streets of the Croatian capital.

That has nothing to do with Dinamo themselves, whose four-point return so far is pretty average. But it’s better than their performance in 2011-12, which was magnificently poor. They lost all six group games and finished with goal difference of minus 19 – the worst ever in the Champions League. Well, that unwanted record lasted 11 years. Rangers were in a fight-off with Czech Republic side Viktoria Plzen to try and better it – or should that be worsen it?

They were dancing in the streets of Zagreb after Giovanni van Bronckhorst's team's troubles against Ajax  (Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group)They were dancing in the streets of Zagreb after Giovanni van Bronckhorst's team's troubles against Ajax  (Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group)
They were dancing in the streets of Zagreb after Giovanni van Bronckhorst's team's troubles against Ajax (Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group)
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Viktoria Plzen ended up with zero points and a minus 19 goal difference after a 4-2 defeat to Barcelona last night so they were not quite hopeless enough to steal Rangers’ new crown.

It’s particularly dismaying for Rangers to have plumbed this depth. The Champions League name was adopted 30 years ago in 1992-93 – the year the Ibrox side came close to reaching the final, which was between the winners of the two four-team groups (Rangers finished second in theirs, a point behind the since discredited Marseille).

The competition has of course undergone several changes since but the four-team groups have remained – it’s just there are eight of them now. Such is the growing disparity between elite teams and the rest there will be no surprise if someone else takes the title of worst-ever team from Rangers next year.

In 2024 the Champions League will scrap the group stage completely as it expands once more and becomes a 36-team single ‘league’. Sounds awful. Maybe Scottish teams will be better out of it.

Besmirched anniversary

01/11/22 now stands as a day of infamy for Rangers which is a shame considering all the positive things that have happened for the club on this date in the past, as detailed in the Ibrox club’s excellent match programme.

Perhaps the greatest regret is that last night’s defeat to Ajax has besmirched the anniversary of one of Rangers’ greatest-ever European victories; against another Dutch club PSV Eindhoven 44 years earlier to the day.

It was PSV’s first-ever defeat at home in Europe. Goals from Alex MacDonald, Derek Johnstone and Bobby Russell earned Rangers a famous 3-2 victory and a place in the last eight of the European Cup, where they lost to Cologne. The win was mentioned a lot in the run-up to Rangers’ return to Eindhoven earlier this season as they secured a place in the Champions League with another memorable victory in Eindhoven – 1-0 this time after a 2-2 draw at Ibrox.

Also on 1 November in the Rangers annals: A 3-0 win over Celtic at Ibrox in 1980, a 3-0 victory over Hearts in 1988 and a 4-1 win over Dinamo Moscow in the Uefa Cup in 2001.

Birthday greetings

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Today’s date – 2 November – is a somewhat significant one for Alfred Schreuder, the manager of Ajax. He turns 50. An hour or so before he hit this special number he spoke in the Ibrox media room about his plans. Or rather he didn’t. The translator was succinct after a question in Dutch from the floor on the subject of the night’s game but which also referenced the manager’s approaching birthday and, specifically, what he had lined up back in the hotel. “That was not answered,” she explained. “It’s a secret!” chipped in the birthday boy.

In a way, he had already marked the occasion: by giving Rangers a bloody nose at Ibrox. Much of the pre-match debate referenced a gift that former Rangers defender Calvin Bassey had apparently brought for his old manager, Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

One hopes Van Bronckhorst was able to offer Schreuder at least a drink despite the Rangers manager’s own obvious disappointment although he might have concluded – reasonably enough – that his side had already proved generous enough on the pitch.

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