Rangers Swedish Adventure

It’s Europa League focus week as UEFA’s secondary competition kicks off its League Phase across Wednesday and Thursday. No, I don’t know why they didn’t use Tuesday as part of it either. Thursday was used last week for the Champions League as it straddled three days after all!

Of the future opponents of Rangers, only Manchester United and Nice played last night, with the other five all playing at some point today. But for now the focus is on the game in Sweden with Rangers taking on Malmo in the 5.45pm oor time kick off.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Malmo’s record against Scottish opposition, particularly Rangers, is annoyingly good. Of the ten previous games, they’ve only lost three. Indeed, they’ve won six of the ten, drawing just one.

Two of their three defeats came at the hands of Hibernian, in the 1970/71 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup first round. A 6-0 thrashing at Easter Road was followed up in the second leg by a more respectable 3-2 defeat in Sweden. A 9-2 aggregate defeat is a painful one to take though. And unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be footage of either of these!

There is footage of Malmo making up for this though…

In the 2013/14 Europa League second qualifying round they won 2-0 at home before coming over to Easter Road and thrashing Hibernian 7-0 – the joint record defeat for a Scottish side in European competition. But in true Hibernian style, they did it first. Celtic (against Barcelona in 2016) and Dundee United (against AZ Alkmaar in 2022) have both matched, although both of those defeats did come away from home.

The only other defeat for Malmo at Scottish hands came against Celtic, and even that still worked out well for them in the end. Having lost 3-2 at Celtic Park in the first leg of the 2015/16 Champions League playoff round…

… they then won 2-0 in Sweden to progress 4-3 on aggregate.

The only draw in the ten matches they’ve played came against Rangers in Sweden in the second leg of the 2011/12 Champions League third qualifying round.

But as they’d won 1-0 at Ibrox in the first leg, that draw meant it was Malmo that progressed to the playoff round and Rangers missed out on Champions League money in a season that of course ended with financial implosion for Rangers.

In a curious quirk of fate, Malmo were both the last team that Rangers faced in Champions League qualifying prior to that financial implosion, and the first team that Rangers faced in Champions League qualifying following their rise from the fourth tier to being crowned champions of Scotland. Unfortunately for them, both legs of the 2021/22 Champions League third qualifying round ended in a 2-1 win for Malmo, and so Rangers dropped into the Europa League. Where, to be fair, they did go on to reach the final.

Here’s the first leg…

And the second leg.

Of course, a similar disappointment is why Rangers are in the Europa League this season, as they lost out 3-1 on aggregate to Dynamo Kyiv in the third qualifying round of the Champions League. The first leg wasn’t too bad, with the late equaliser from Cyriel Dessers giving Rangers hope…

But the “home” leg ended in a 2-0 defeat, the second yellow card for Jefte really not helping matters.

And there isn’t even much in the way of good news if you look to other Swedish opponents that Rangers have faced. In 1997/98, Rangers were knocked out of Champions League second qualifying round by IFK Goteborg. The 3-0 defeat in Sweden…

… couldn’t be turned around in the second leg at Ibrox in a match that finished 1-1.

The good news? Malmo are here for the same reason as Rangers. Whilst they did come through both the second and third qualifying rounds of the Champions League, seeing off KI of the Faroe Islands 6-4 on aggregate (despite losing the second leg 3-2 in the Faroes) and PAOK of Greece 6-5 on aggregate after extra time in Greece (the home game finished 2-2), they fell short against Sparta Prague in the playoff round, losing 2-0 in both legs and thus 4-0 on aggregate and dropping down to the Europa League.

They are faring better domestically though. On Sunday they hammered Hacken 4-0 at home to stretch their lead at the top of the Allsvenskan after 24 games to eleven points over Djurgarden, who admittedly have a game in hand. They’ll host Mjallby on Sunday… I’m assuming that’s more than just the one guy that used to play for Celtic.

Incidentally, their second round Swedish Cup match against Torslanda was postponed prior to their Sparta Prague tie… does that ever actually work and make a difference? Or is it just a myth that gets rolled out every season when the SFA and the SPFL don’t do it?

Rangers remain third in the Scottish Premiership, five points behind leaders Celtic and second place Aberdeen who both have a 100% record after five matches. Of course, all three are into the semi final of the League Cup as well, Rangers reaching that stage on Saturday by beating Dundee 3-0 on their return to Ibrox after a month and a bit of playing at Hampden – including that Dynamo Kyiv home leg. They’ll host Hibernian in the league at Ibrox on Sunday.

There is, of course, one small flaw in the focus on the Europa League plan from UEFA. That being that the Women’s Champions League qualifying round two is happening. The first legs all took place at the weekend, with the second legs also spanning Wednesday and Thursday this week (albeit mostly Thursday)

The good news is that Celtic are 1-0 up against Vorskla Poltava after the “away” leg thanks to Murphy Agnew getting the only goal of the game.

Not that it was away, as it was in Airdrie, or even matters because we don’t do away goals any more. Celtic could maybe have taken a few more chances in the first leg and made the tie a bit more safe, but they’ll be confident now of being able to do the job in the second leg. Although no doubt Vorskla will also believe they’re still well in this tie and can turn it around.

The crucial second leg kicks off at 7.15pm and whilst that does still overlap with the Rangers men’s game a bit, at least it’s not taking place on the same day as the Celtic men’s team are playing like on Sunday!

There’s not a whole lot to add that wasn’t said in Sunday’s blog. Celtic are indeed down to third now after both Rangers and Glasgow City won at the weekend. They won’t play in the league this weekend coming either, as it’s the second round of the SWPL Cup where Celtic will be away to Montrose. Yes, the same team they beat 4-2 last Thursday in the league, they’ve rather bookended this crucial Champions League tie.

Good luck to both Rangers men and Celtic women tonight!

Oh, and yes I did paraphrase John Bl’s book title for this blog. Be sure to check that out, as well as his collaboration with Neil Doherty, We’re Going to Wembley. They’re in all good bookshops!