Over recent weeks Ibrox fans have been taking an unexpected interest in the history of European football.
The greatest achievement of their old club was losing 12-4 to Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1960 European Cup semi-final which was a blessing in disguise with the German part-timers hammered 7-3 in the Hampden final by Real Madrid.
It seems that Celtic’s European performances have been gaining some attention with sniggering coming from old school media as well as the usual suspects among the Gullible and Deluded.
Kyogo and Luis Palma have together scored more goals in the Champions League for Celtic, than Ally McCoist, Brian Laudrup, Kris Boyd and Alfredo Morelos has scored combined in the Champions League during their time at all the Rangerses.
— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) December 14, 2023
This season Kyogo Furuhashi and Luis Palma have each scored twice in the Champions League which is double the career totals of James Tavernier and Scott Arfield.
Digging into the legendary club strikers from Ibrox it seems that with non-Scottish referees in charge they struggled to make an impact.
All time leading scorer Ally McCoist managed just two group stage goals, both in his final campaign in the 1996/97 season with The Herald reporting:
RANGERS took their first points in the Champions League last night with victory over Grasshopper of Zurich and their veteran striker, Ally McCoist, helped himself to his first goals in the tournament.
It has long been a barb directed at McCoist by his detractors that he had not scored in the Champions League. Yesterday, as his career moves towards its end, he twice answered those critics, once, after 66 minutes from the penalty spot and again, seven minutes later with a shot which he swept beyond the Swiss keeper, Pascal Zuberbuhler.
The goals were eventually enough to give the Scottish champions victory, and enough to give them also a £500,000 bonus for the three points they placed on the board. But the 34,192 crowd were left wondering at what might have been.
It seems that 15,000 loyal bears had had enough of watching McCoist’s efforts against elite teams like Grasshoppers and Auxerre. That group resulted in three points from six matches and a goal difference of -8.
Brian Laudrup drew a blank in that competition while at Ibrox as did Kris Boyd, Alfredo Morelos’ performances last season remains the stuff of legend.
A lot of McCoist’s goals came from being offside and not getting pulled up or Mark Hately clattering the goalkeeper out the way.
McCoist and the rest couldn’t get away with it in Europe.
Similarly Walter Smith got found out as a manager when he went to Everton and left the protection of the referees in Scotland.
WALTER EBT SMITH THAT WAS HIS ONLY WAY OF BECOMING A OLDCO LEGEND WAS BY CHEATING WITH HIS EBT SIDELETTERS THE CORRUPT SFA.SPFL KNEW ABOUT IT CAMPBELL OGILVIE KNEW HE WAS WORKING AT THE SFA THATS HOW CORRUPT SCOTTISH FOOTBALL IS OLDCO AND NEWCO STILL GOING STRONG IT WILL NEVER STOP UNTILL HAMPDEN IS CLEANED OUT FROM TOP TO BOTTOM AND GET SHOT OF THE MASONS SCUM..