It’s been confirmed if Rangers do manage to get past Dynamo Kyiv (itself rather a long shot) in the Champions League third round qualifier, that Sam Lammers’ FC Twente may well await Philippe Clement’s men after Robin Propper’s former side were drawn in Rangers’ side of the draw for the UCL playoffs.
The playoff draw was carried out today, and the winners of Rangers’ tie with Kyiv will face the winners of Twente v Austrian giants Salzburg, and we’ll be completely honest and say if we do manage the miracle of beating Ukraine’s second-best side, we cannot see how we could overcome either of the sides that could potentially await us in the final stage.
Twente were third last season and will expect to start this season off similarly despite losing their captain to Rangers, but gaining Sam Lammers who had been on fire at Utrecht last campaign.
Meanwhile Salzburg were Austrian leaders until the league split and they fell inches short of the title to Sturm Graz – just two points.
The poetic outcome does seem to be facing Lammers though, but that still requires us to overcome Kyiv, something we’d have to say is likely to be considerably beyond us at this point.
Rangers have gone into European matches under Philippe Clement and defied expectations – the victory v Betis in Spain was very unexpected, even if Clement’s tactics v Benfica in the last 16 were utterly stupid.
But this is a whole new level – as we’ve said before, the qualifiers alone in the Champions League are generally stronger than the Europa League last 16, considerably, in truth, and Rangers getting results in the Europa doesn’t mean much for Europe’s premier competition.
And Clement will need to really get his and the squad’s act together to even stand a chance of facing off against Lammers or indeed the Austrians.
The one thing we do have is if we do get to the playoffs, we have Propper who can provide incredible insight into Twente’s tactics – few players could offer a better take, in fairness.
But we need to get past the Ukrainians first and that will be far from easy.