The Confederations Cup concluded on Sunday night, which officially brings an end to the major European football season. However, UEFA Champions League and Europa League football has already started ahead of the 2017/18 football season.
Clubs from the smaller leagues of European football will battle it out in July, to see which teams can make it to the latter stages of qualifying and possibly cause a shock by reaching the group stages.
However, it wasn’t long ago that Glasgow Rangers were mixing it with the top clubs of European football. The ‘Gers are one of the oldest football clubs in Britain and were UEFA Cup runners-up in 2007/08.
Having run into financial trouble, Rangers were forced to play in the third division of Scottish football. It didn’t take long for the club to move through the lower divisions of Scottish football and Rangers achieved promotion every season before returning to the top-flight for the 2016/17 season.
Firstly, under Mark Warburton and then Graeme Murty, the club finished third in the Scottish Premiership and this secured a place in the Europa League first qualifying round. The draw produced a tie with Luxembourg’s Progres Niederkorn.
The new Rangers manager, Pedro Caixinha, was expected to guide his team to a comfortable victory over a team who finished fourth in the Luxembourg National Division last season. However, having taken the lead through Kenny Miller in the 37th minute, Rangers should have won the match comfortably but could not add to their opening goal.
The match finished 1-0 in favour of the home side and Progres Niederkorn will be happy with the result ahead of the second leg on Tuesday night.
Progres Niederkorn have never won a game in any of the European competitions they have entered. They have played a total of twelve European games in their history, losing ten and drawing two. The draws came against Glentoran of Northern Ireland in the 1981/82 European Cup and Shamrock Rovers in the 2015/16 Europa League.
Both of Progres Niederkorn’s draws came in the home leg of the tie and they lost both away legs comfortably. Having struggled in the away legs of European ties, the Luxembourg outfit may feel this is their opportunity to make history and win a match and possibly a tie in European competition.
Progres Niederkorn are expected to name a similar team to that which started the first leg at Ibrox, with a mix of German, French and Luxembourg players in their team. Rangers can welcome Bruno Alves into the squad but having been involved in the Confederations Cup with Portugal, he is unlikely to join his fellow countrymen, Fabio Cardoso and Dalcio in the starting XI.
Trends show Progres Niederkorn have been involved in some high scoring home matches recently, scoring eleven goals and conceding four in their last three at the Stade Jos Haupert. They will hope to score the goal which will level the tie but Rangers will be happy to hit them on the break. An away win with both teams scoring makes a good bet for this match.