Some Rangers fans claim we’re not a CL team

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Some Rangers fans claim we’re not a CL team
Rangers fans await kick off ahead of the UEFA Europa League Semi-final, second leg football match between Rangers and RB Leipzig at the Ibrox Stadium, in Glasgow, on May 5, 2022. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP) (Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images)

A lot of fans have been wondering if Rangers are in fact simply not a CL level team, and that Europa League is our level.

Let us remind you we are a founding father OF the Champions league, so we do belong at that level, per se, but in the here and now, are Rangers of today at the level required?

Well, Celtic sure as heck aren’t, but they got there, gifted yes.

And that’s how Rangers used to get to the group stage sometimes too, by way of direct passage to the group via winning the SPL.

But if we look into the past, the calibre of teams we faced in the qualifiers back in the day were not really that different to Union and Malmo:

Zeta, Anorthosis Famagusta, Copenhagen, Kaunas, Herfolge, Haka, Parma, Lyngby, Leeds.

It’s an array of different levels, from mobs from Cyprus and Lithuania, to the giants of England and Italy.

But our results back in the 90s and 00s were really not that much better than today. Older Bears will remember us being gubbed in qualifiers by sides like Sofia, Athens, Gothenburg, Fenerbahce you name it.

Union and Malmo are basically around the same level.

So are we a CL team? We’re no more or less one now than what we used to be when Walter or Wee Dick were our managers.

We had horrible results back then too, and claims that Union is a worse result than any we’ve ever had is just embarrassing – this isn’t close to Unicorn, or Sligo Rovers anyone?

It was an ugly result for sure, but even the Great Walter had results like this in Europe.

So are we a CL or UEL team? Both – it just depends where we are come the end of this month.

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3 COMMENTS

  1. We’ve shown regularly in the last 3 seasons that UEL is a level where we can compete whereas Malmo and USG merely highlighted our limitations. Even though they themselves are nowhere near CL level we still couldn’t perform at that level.

  2. No, we are not at a level yet to compete and prove a threat in the Champions League. That’ll take a better class of player and much more investment from the Board.Or we can leave the moribund SPFL and it’s parochial attitude, and join one of the proposed Euro setups that will attract the big Media money. Subject to a successful Courtcase against UEFA of course.

    We can, as last season showed in the EuropaLeague, be more than able to perform at that level, and perhaps that should be our target for a couple of seasons. There’s prestige, trophies and wads of cash to be won there.

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