Rangers, Celtic and Ajax are woefully out their depth in the Champions League

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Rangers, Celtic and Ajax are woefully out their depth in the Champions League
Ajax's Ghanaian midfielder Mohammed Kudus (R) controls the ball ahead of Rangers' English defender James Tavernier (C) during the first round Group A UEFA Champions League football match between Ajax Amsterdam (NED) and Rangers (SCO) at The Johan Cruijff ArenA in Amsterdam on September 7, 2022. (Photo by Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP) (Photo by KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP via Getty Images)

Napoli’s demolition of Ajax really did put into perspective the jump in class the Champions League is.

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Ibrox Noise’s Kevin is doing his best to lift spirits around here, show it’s not all doom and gloom, and he makes a tonne of valid points, but it’s patently clear now to Rangers, Ajax, and indeed Celtic, what the staggering leap in quality the UCL actually is.

See, while Celtic have given their matches more of a go overall than Rangers, they sit rock bottom of their group with a single point. While they’re being ‘praised’ for those guts, the be all and end all of it remains the fact they’re only fractionally less rubbish than Rangers at that level.

What’s happening with Celtic is Napoli x3 – 3 matches in which they’ve given it a go but come out, more or less, empty handed.

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Rangers did show fight v the Italians, whose 0-3 reverse in Govan was given even more context when they travelled to Holland and absolutely pummelled Calvin Bassey’s hapless Ajax to the tune of 6.

Yes, indeed, for the side who destroyed us on matchday one have now found how out of THEIR depth they really are, after Liverpool and Napoli combined to put 8, yes, 8 past them, which gave some idea of how out of his comfort zone Calvin Bassey actually is too.

It’s easy to look good against a static Rangers, not so easy up against Liverpool and Napoli.

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The Champions League is a deeply skewed competition. Sure, Man City are a stunning football side with the world’s greatest striker up front, but to absolutely obliterate a strong Danish side like that is completely pointless.

Pot 4 in the UCL is absolute cannon fodder – it’s Europa League level teams, the best of, being absolutely decimated by pots 3, 2 and 1.

The real Champions League is in those three pots – not a single team in pot 4 has a snowball’s chance in hell of doing a thing in this competition (we’ll address the freak that is Club Brugges in due course).

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Among all 8 pot 4 teams there’s a combined total of 11 points (aside Brugges) and 11 goals after 3 matches. That’s 7 teams to secure a lofty duo of 11. All bar Brugge are bottom of their group.

Conceded? 52.

The UCL isn’t for Rangers, Celtic or Plzen, it’s not for teams like us, we’re just not good enough.

This doesn’t excuse not having a go, but doing so is still a humbling as Celtic are finding out.

It’s all about 56, and seeing if we can pinch maybe one massive memorable result in the UCL.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Maybe UEFA were right all along to try make it a closed shop for the extremeley rish and massive clubs then ,with all this complaining from ajax and rangers .

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