It's becoming a depressingly familiar tale.
Just when it seemed as if Scottish football might finally be ready to emerge from years in the doldrums, our clubs have stumbled back out onto the European stage like accident prone novices. The record thus far makes fairly abysmal reading. All together, five Scottish clubs have played a combined total of 13 ties over the first few weeks of the season.
They have managed just three wins and one draw between them. That’s nine defeats with an aggregate score to date standing at 28-8 to the other guys. There’s little to be gained from mincing words when we’re being butchered in front of the watching world. Of course, it’s not too late for Celtic, Rangers and Hearts to redeem themselves and to restore some sort of national pride as they attempt to recover from being roughed up so spectacularly over the course of a bruising first week of group stage football.
But it does feel as if a damaging trend has already been set in motion where the international credibility of our game is concerned and, let’s be blunt, it’s been bordering on the bloody ridiculous since this latest campaign got up and running across the continent. It wasn’t all that long ago that it seemed reasonable to hope that we might get close to a full set of teams competing across UEFA ’s three tiers, now that our national sport finally feels like it’s back on the up.
Having only just marvelled at Rangers on their remarkable run to the Europa League Final, there was a sense of heady anticipation of what might be to follow with Motherwell, Dundee United and Hearts digging out their passports over the summer. That Motherwell were the first to be oxtered off the premises, having been turned over home and away by Sligo Rovers, came as a sobering dunt to the self-esteem.
But it still left United with a shot at gaining entry to the Europa Conference League and Hearts one tie away from a place in the Europa League. The eye-watering 7-0 second leg thrashing dished out to United by AZ Alkmaar soon put paid to that. And Hearts fluffed their lines too by losing home and away to FC Zurich and dropping down into UEFA’s third grade competition where they were routinely routed at Tynecastle by Istanbul Basaksehir on opening night.
Now a trip to Latvia lies ahead and a redemption shot against an RFS side which took a point home from Fiorentina last week. A second straight defeat must be avoided at all costs on Thursday night if Hearts wish to be taken seriously in their section. All in all, it really has been a pitiful, painful reintroduction to the big leagues and now we have only three teams left standing, it must be hoped that each of them can do something meaningful about redressing the balance and bucking this demoralising trend over the coming days and weeks.
Rangers, of course, were all set to get the first chance tomorrow at home to a Napoli side which thrashed Liverpool on the same night Giovanni van Bronckhorst ’s side was being eviscerated in Amsterdam. UEFA’s decision yesterday to move that game back by 24 hours – while enraging fans of both clubs – will at least afford van Bronckhorst more time to fine tune his strategy after getting off to such a woeful start back in his homeland.
In fact, that 4-0 humiliation against Ajax has nudged the Dutchman into an early season tailspin and he did not help matters when he complained afterwards that Rangers are simply not able to compete at this level. If that’s the same message he drummed into his players beforehand then it’s no wonder they stood back in admiration of Alfred Schreuder’s men and allowed them to do as they pleased for 90 unfathomably obliging minutes.
If they welcome the Italians to Ibrox with the same sense of servile generosity then they’ll end up on the wrong end of another beating so savage it will feed straight into their manager’s newly found inferiority complex.
Quite simply, Rangers have to be greatly improved in all areas of the pitch if they are to come out of this one with their self respect intact and clinging onto any hope of escaping from this group with a third placed finish.
Van Bronckhorst could do himself a huge favour here by, among other things, redeploying Allan McGregor as his last line
of defence and removing the bloodied Jon McLaughlin from the firing line before any more lasting damage is done to last season’s second choice keeper.
If he could also ask his central defenders to get their heads on a few corners and invite his midfield men to put in a tackle or two then, perhaps, Rangers might rediscover some of the magic which made Thursday nights at Ibrox so unmissable last season. The old place will be crackling with that same surging electricity from the moment the Champions League theme tune belts out of the speakers before kick-off.
But it could all turn flat very quickly unless van Bronckhorst and his players show an appetite for the occasion and a desire to engage with their opponents. That’s why Celtic were applauded off their own pitch at the end of last week’s second half mauling from Real Madrid.
They may have been completely outclassed before the end but the aggression and the thundering tempo of their first half performance was enough to satisfy the demands of a home support which turned up not knowing quite what to expect. Yes, Ange Postecoglou’s brand of thrash metal football might be too much for most to cope with in this country but the visit of Europe’s champions provided an intriguing gauge for how it might measure up on the biggest stage of all.
So, while a 3-0 battering was the bottom line, Celtic’s players will feel reasonably reassured that they can get more joy out of Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday night by adopting that same high intensity approach.
Let’s hope so too because the Ukrainians laid down a marker of their own in Leipzig last week with a 4-1 win.
If they dish out another sore one in Warsaw in midweek then Postecoglou’s grand plan for taking Celtic on tour might suddenly appear a whole lot more flawed than first thought. And that’s exactly the kind of reality check that Scottish football can do without now that we’re in danger of appearing inadequate all over again.
Read next
