Jock Stein v Walter Smith? You cannot be serious

Firstly, I think that Walter Smith would run a mile away from any comparisons with Jock Stein.

The build up to tonight’s Manchester United-Rangers match is laced with statistics and facts with Smith facing upto Sir Alex Ferguson, two of the most successful managers of all time and both students of Stein.

There are legitimate comparisons between Ferguson and Stein that could be debated either way.

Ferguson’s success has lasted longer than Stein’s did but didn’t have the immediate impact and transformation that Stein brought to Celtic- winning the European Cup within 30 months of taking charge using a nucleus of players that he inherited from Jimmy McGrory.

As manager of Manchester United Ferguson has had access to incredible transfer funds but has also been competing with equally well resourced rivals in Chelsea, Real Madrid, AC Milan and Barcelona.

To compare Smith with Stein however is a non-starter. Taking out domestic football to concentrate on the European arena, and more specifically the European Cup/Champions League highlights the contrast between the two managers.

In 30 Champions League matches Smith has won five. In 52 European Cup matches Stein won 28 games.

Included amongst Stein’s 52 matches were two finals and eight semi finals. All of Stein’s matches were against current champions, the Champions League format allows teams like Stuttgart and Seville entry whilst in Stein’s day those sort of clubs would only get to compete in the Fairs Cities/UEFA Cup.

Statistics can of course prove all sorts of different things. Kris Boyd scored more SPL goals that Henrik Larsson yet scored less goals against Celtic than the Swede who scored twice against Celtic in Europe, once with Barcelona and an og on his home debut for Tirol Innsbruck.

Rangers have never found the European Cup/Champions League to be kind, the Ibrox club go into tonight’s match without a win in their last ten Champions League ties and haven’t won in any European tournament since beating Sporting Lisbon 2-0 in April 2008.

Whatever the outcome of tonight’s match I’m fairly certain that Smith will be the last person to compare his record to that of Stein.

Follow Video Celts on Twitter and Facebook