RANGERS They are so far in front they are virtually over the horizon and out of sight. Yet despite their dramatic Old Firm winner on the last day of February which put them ten points clear of their bitter rivals, and with a game in-hand to boot, manager Walter Smith and his players are sticking to their guns that there is nothing to celebrate just yet at Ibrox. There was an outburst of emotion at the end of the Old Firm game at Ibrox. A winning goal in injury time is always provocative, but the response was an indication of significance. Satisfaction ought to be enduring. The season remains poised for Rangers, though, as success is possible in all three domestic competitions, but not guaranteed. “We’ve not won anything yet,” says Steven Whittaker, the full-back. “We’ve still got to follow it through.” The doubt is novel for Rangers, as all three of the club’s title wins since 2000 have been achieved on the final day of the season. The emphasis now is on avoiding complacency. There is familiarity in encountering Premier League opponents at least three times in each campaign, but other factors are also relevant. Almost every side in the top flight still has something to play for. Fixtures against the Old Firm also tend to raise spirits. No game should be considered elementary. “That’s the Old Firm, we’re used to that,” says Smith. “But you get to this stage of the season and there’s a lot at stake for the teams. Our league gets a bit of criticism, for being so small and playing each other four times, but it does bring a situation at the end of the season where there’s no easy matches. The majority of games have a bit of meaning to them. I always stress to the boys that at this stage of the season, a wee bit of an extra edge comes into it for everybody concerned.” The mood at Rangers is one of denial. Points have been accrued through sheer force of will at times this season, but they can still be rendered worthless. David Weir and other senior players have already prohibited loose talk in the dressing-room. Assumptions about winning the treble are considered hazardous. The pursuit of honours can be gruelling, but the hardship is necessary. “You need to try to forget about the position you’re in and concentrate on the points that are still available,” said Whittaker. “We still need to continue on the winning streak we’re on. It’s in our own hands and we need to keep putting pressure on the rest. We all know what’s at stake, we all know what it’s like to win a championship, we did it last season. The motivation is there to do that again.” There is little respite for Rangers; midweek fixtures will exert a strain on the squad. Injuries might still imperil the team, but Smith can at least take comfort from the current clean bill of health. Even the international week proved obliging right after the Old Firm game with 13 Ibrox players off on international duty around the globe. Meanwhile, through, Smith has lambasted all referee talk in the wake of a month in which the men in the middle have come firmly under the spotlight. In the build-up to February's Old Firm game, Celtic leaked it that they had complained to the SFA about the standard of officiating after they felt a catalogue of decisions have gone against them so far this term, three of which have happened in games against Rangers. Their complaints appeared to backfire with Scott Brown harshly dismissed at Ibrox and the subsequent appeal thrown out. Rangers, though, were at the centre of another storm when St Mirren boss Gus MacPherson then claimed Weir ought to have been sent off and Smith's patience snapped. "Everybody wants people to get ordered off and everybody wants penalties against us,” he claimed. “Everybody wants everything against us at the moment. "I don't know what road we are going down in that respect. I didn't see much in it myself, I've got to say. “We seem to be reaching a ridiculous stage where refereeing decisions are actually becoming far more important than the game itself." Smith also spoke out following last weekend's Old Firm derby triumph when he criticised the unnamed Hoops source who revealed the club's unhappiness with decisions which they felt had gone against them this season. The Ibrox boss added: "Everybody starts talking about the refereeing decisions but it's a game of football. "Refereeing decisions good, bad or indifferent have been part of football for a good number of years. When I started, Jim McLean, Alex Ferguson, Jock Stein - they all moaned about refereeing decisions. I moan about them. Everybody moans about them. "But now, in Scotland, it seems to be going into an area where it's taking on far greater significance. "Your team has got to be good enough to overcome them. As far as referees are concerned, they make their decisions and we've got to get on with it. "Referees in every league in the world are under scrutiny for the decisions they make. "Now, in ours, it's every weekend that we are playing it's becoming the referees who are influencing games. It should be players and managers who are influencing games. "The better the job we do at it, then the better our teams do. I moan at referees' decisions, and I have done over my career, but I think it's reaching a ridiculous proportion in Scotland at the moment and it's not giving the referees the proper opportunity to do their jobs." Amazon.co.uk Widgets SCOTLAND The irregular rhythm of international football has not come easily to new Scotland boss Craig Levein. The Hampden boss got his regime off to the ideal start with a 1-0 friendly win over the Czech Republic - the first time Scotland have won a friendly match on their own turf for 14 years. In fairness, the Scots rode their luck a little but an opportunist goal from Scott Brown kept up the feelgood factor in the national side. Levein took the win in his stride and is now looking ahead to massive overhaul of the Scottish game, from the roots up. “I have a lot of players to watch and games to see,” he said. “This summer is going to be busy. I am not going to the World Cup but there are lots of friendlies on. And I haven’t even touched on the whole structure of the youth thing.” Levein’s main modus operandi as a football manager is to be more thoroughand methodical than his opponent. But he discovered last week just how limited a Scotland manager’s time with his squad actually is. He issued players with detailed DVDs focusing on every player in the Czech squad, and will expand that programme in the future. But he is so fearful of bombarding players with an information overload in a short space of time that he has had to hold himself back. “There is a temptation to get overly excited, and say ‘Lets do this, and this, and this’,” Levein said. “I have to rein myself back a bit. Although I haven’t had a game for three months, some of these guys have had three games in a week. It was a very important moment for me, but in a way it was just another international friendly for them.” That is why the ones who will be given the summer off are the playersthemselves. It was confirmed last week that Scotland’s next assignment will be in Sweden on August 11, with Levein having knocked back a friendly or squad gathering during the internationalweek in May. He feels that limiting Scotland sessions safeguards their importance. He hopes that allowing the players to focus on their holidays in the summer is a trade-off which may help them return to action refreshed and enthusiastic in time for the twin double-headers against Lithuania and Liechtenstein in September, and the Czech Republic and Spain in October. “The UK leagues are the toughest in the world,” Levein said. “I feel that physically the amount of fixtures, the conditions you play under, and the tempo of the games, more than take their toll on the players. So I made a decision they would have from now until the summer off, but we have four games in September and October, and I want them fresh and ready to work hard. We need to put in a similar effort but also add that little bit more quality and composure to our play.” To this end, Levein still has decisions to make on how players unavailable last week, such as Shaun Maloney, Kris Commons, James Morrison and Kirk Broadfoot might fit into the jigsaw. The Barry Ferguson issue has been parked until the summer, when further discussions between will take place. Chief scout Michael Oliver’s unprecedented player search has turned up a few other options for the future, with the SFA refusing to give up on Newcastle United striker Andy Carroll. Ideally, Levein will be in a position to add real quality to his squad and build on the confidence gained from the victory over the Czechs. The pluses outweighed the minuses on Wednesday,but it was a close-run thing. One such positive was the result itself, and a clean sheet against a side who Levein feels are strongest “middle to front”. Individual displays from Graham Dorrans, Charlie Adam and Lee Wallace suggest they are more than ready to make an impact during this campaign. Scott Brown weighed in with a winner and another mighty display for his country. There was also the maturity shown by the Scotland crowd over the return of Kris Boyd and the performance the player produced. On the other hand, however, was the realisation that a Czech side without Petr Cech, Milan Baros, David Rozehnal and Zdenek Grygera got the better of the Scots for large swathes of the game. Star turns included Tomas Rosicky and Jaroslav Plasil but there were no real surprises for Levein. “There weren’t any of them who we thought ‘oh we will have to give them more attention’,” Levein said. “But if we are going to beat them in either of the qualifying games we will have to play well, our defenders will have to be very good and our goalkeeper will have to be good. The Czechs might have better individuals, but the team and the work ethic are worth more than 10 places in the world rankings. The question is whether they can be worth more than 20 places in the rankings?” While Levein was celebrating a win in his first game in charge, his chief scout, Michael Oliver, was spying on Spain , whom Scotland face in the Euro 2012 qualifiers . “Michael told me they were the best team he had ever seen, and that we shouldn’t bother turning up.” Back to earth with a bump then. CELTIC Celtic and the SFA have gone to war. It all began with a Celtic 'source' leaking a story to the media in the frantic build-up to February's Old Firm game about a Parkhead complaint to the game's governing body over a lenghty list of complaints they believe have gone against them this term. Both previous Old Firm games were cited in the list, the first when Celtic were denied what was a stonewall penalty at Ibrox in a game they lost 2-1, the other in the game against Rangers in January when they were denied a goal from Marc-Antoine Fortune, a match they went on to draw 1-1. In between times we a couple of offside goals against Falkirk and Dundee United that TV cameras later proved to be legitimate. Celtic drew both of the games. However, the furore that greeted their complaints ensured that referee Dougie McDonald was under intense pressure going into the third Old Firm game at Ibrox at the end of the month. The game was an hour old when Scott McDonald and Kyle Lafferty tussled and the red card was waved in Brown, the Celtic captain's direction. It seemed a harsh decision and the Parkhead side went on to lose a game they really needed to win with a goal conceded in the dying seconds of the game. The celebrations from the Ibrox dugout told their own story with regards to whether or not they really believe the league title is not over just yet. Celtic's appeal was then thrown out by the SFA, but the simmering resentment on the part of the Parkhead club continues to linger. In truth, they have been undone this season by a combination of desperately poor finishing in games they have dominated, while at the back they have have toiled desperately defensively. So far this term Celtic have conceded an astounding 29 SPL goals. They have not been helped by a string of poor refereeing decisions and it is no slight to say that Scottish whistlers have had an appalling season, not just when officiating Celtic games but in an entire host of matches where blatant mistakes have been shown up. Yet, it was the actual appeal process which so rankled Mowbray. “Who was the appeal to?,” he said. “My frustration is that the same referee who has made the decision on the day has another look at it and the matter is finished. “It doesn’t seem much of an appeal. If you appeal something, then you want to do so to an independent body. But that is not the case here. “I didn’t know the process before we went into this. I thought we would appeal, someone would have a look at it and think, ‘yeah, maybe the referee got that one wrong’, without going over the top of the individual or wagging a figure at him. “If it gets thrown out by an independent panel then you say, ‘fine, we all move on’. It just seems harsh to me that the guy who makes the decision is then asked to make another decision.” Mowbray said that he had watched the video of the Brown-Lafferty clash on four or five subsequent occasions, and he remains convinced that McDonald made the wrong decision in sprinting across the Ibrox pitch to brandish his red card at Brown. “I’ve watched it back and I can’t see a sending-off,” the Celtic manager said. “Even if you think I have a level of bias because I work for this football club, I still can’t see a sending-off. As a guy who looks at things honestly, I can’t see what he [Brown] has done. People have said to me that it might be a headbutt, but is there a headbutt? The crime of feigning a potential headbutt might be more of a crime than what Scott Brown did. If you can sit there and honestly believe Scott threw his head towards at him and that his headbutt was a violent act, then fine. I have watched it and can’t see it. I just can’t see it. “Scott has been flung around. He was put in a headlock and thrown to the floor. When you watch it back, it is wrong. “And the other frustration is, in such a massive game with the whole world watching, and given what happened in the previous two Old Firm matches, why make such a big decision if you aren’t sure of it?” With the pressure building around the Celtic manager, Mowbray insisted that he would be there for the long term at the club. There are various rumours doing the rounds that Mowbray will quit Celtic in the summer - or even be pushed - but he blankly denied such notions. Winning the Active Nation Scottish Cup, however, now seems more essential than ever to Mowbray and Celtic. “From my perspective we have to keep going, keep working with the team, keep building it,” he added. “I see positive signs, but I also see parts of the team we still need to work with, but we will keep going. “This team has to win every season. Some seasons you do, some you don’t. Our goal at the start of every season is to win everything. We have to go and try to win our league games and see what happens. But it is there for Rangers to lose it now. “It’s the same as every year. This club has to win something, but if you don’t, do you throw everything out and start again? If you are logical, then you don’t, you buy into what you believe is going to take the club in the right direction and you keep going. “Gordon [Strachan] was very successful and won three championships, but I play a different style of football - a different type of football. I want expansive football and at times it can be like a rollercoaster. You are going to have days where you lose goals, but you will also have days of great victories and fantastic football. That’s the journey you go on.” © Ali Hannah & Soccerphile.com Tags SPL Scottish Football

UEFA Cup Zenit's success triumph of soccer Ozren Podnar reports... A brilliant Zenit team became only the second European trophy winner for Russia after CSKA Moscow three years ago. Congratulations to Zenit, as their soccer was like a puff of fresh air: lightfooted, attacking and ambitious, unlike that of Glasgow Rangers, which reminded us of Greece from the 2004 Euro. And that should not be taken as a compliment. At the City of Manchester, Zenit crowned their brilliant European season in which they overcame teams from the biggest leagues: Villarreal (1-0 and 1-2), Marseille (1-3 and 2-0), Bayer (4-1 and 0-1) and Bayern (1-1 and 4-0). The first leg against Bayer in Leverkusen, where the home team were thoroughly thrashed, opened everybody's eyes to the Russians' potential, and the later demolishing of Bayern delighted the fans everywhere thanks to an inspired and fast-paced play reminiscent of the wonderful Dinamo Kiev of the seventies and eighties. In spite of the admiration for the Rangers' commitment and desire, the neutrals largely fancied Zenit, who did not allow the Scots to suffocate them as they had suffocated Panathinaikos, Sporting and Fiorentina with their 7-8 men defense. . Even without Pavel Pogrebnyak, this season's UEFA Cup's top scorer, the St. Petersburg team had enough explosive to penetrate the Rangers' stonewall twice. The first to do it was Igor Denisov after a nice interplay with Andrei Arshavin and the last bricks of the bunker were demolished by Konstantin Ziryanov in the last minute after a cross by Fatih Tekke. As far as the Rangers are concerned, the finals in Manchester evoked memories from Barcelona 36 years ago. There Rangers played their previous European finals against another Russian squad, Dinamo Moscow, but then they prevailed by 3-2. The Rangers fans then also "prevailed" against the police at Camp Nou, which ultimately cost the team a two-year ban from Europe. UEFA Cup finals City of Manchester Stadium Zenit vs Rangers 2-0 (0-0) Scorers: Denisov (72), Ziryanov (90) Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football J-League K-League Betting

Sretan ishod Kupa UEFA Čestitke Zenitu – i Istok ima "konja za trku" Sjajni sastav Zenita postala je druga ruska osvajačica europskog trofeja, tri godine nakon moskovskog CSKA. Obje su imale svog Hrvata, dapače Ivicu. CSKA Olića, Zenit Križanca. Svaka čast, i Križancu i Zenitu, jer njihov je nogomet poletan, ofenzivan i ambiciozan, za razliku od Rangersovog, koji nas je podsjetio na – Grčku s Eura 2004.! A o toj Grčkoj ne mislimo ništa dobra. Iako volimo bivšeg Rangerovca Dadu Pršu, naše su simpatije bile na strani Zenita, koji nije dao Škotima da ga zaguše kao što su ranije zagušili Panathinaikos, Sporting i Fiorentina: i bez Pavela Pogrebnjaka, prvog topnika Kupa UEFA, petrogradski je sastav imao dovoljno eksploziva da probije škotski bunker. Prvi je to učinio Igor Denisov u akciji s junakom navijača, Andrejom Aršavinom, a zadnje je "ciglice" bunkera srušio Konstantin Zirjanov u 90. minuti na dodavanje Turčina Fatiha Tekkea. Finale u Manchesteru donijelo je nekoliko zanimljivih podudarnosti. Prije 36 godina, Rangersi su svoje prethodno europsko finale odigrali protiv ruske momčadi, ali su tada bili bolji od moskovskog Dinama s 3:2; kao i rusku reprezentaciju, i Zenit danas vodi Nizozemac, Dick Advocaat, zvani Mali general. Zenitaši su protiv glasgowskih plavaca okrunili blistavu europsku sezonu, u kojoj su redom rušili momčadi iz najjačih liga: Villarreal s 1:0 i 1:2, Marseille s 1:3 i 2:0, Bayer s 4:1 i 0:1 te Bayern s 1:1 i 4:0. Sjajna predstava u Leverkusenu, kojom je potučen Bayer, otvorila je oči cijeloj nogometnoj Europi na Zenitov potencijal, a 4:0 protiv samog Bayerna, uvjerljivog njemačkog osvajača trostruke krune izazvala je oduševljenje nadahnutom brzopoteznom igrom Rusa, koja podsjeća na kijevski Dinamo iz sedamdesetih i osamdesetih. A kijevski Dinamo, da ne zaboravimo, najbolja je slavenska momčad u povijesti. Copyright Ozren Podnar & Soccerphile Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football J-League K-League Betting

They came, they saw, they conquered Manchester. But the first Scottish invasion of England since Bonnie Prince Charlie's in 1745 ended in tears once again. Rangers were deservedly beaten 2-0 in the UEFA Cup Final by the sleek Russians of Zenit St Petersburg, coached by former 'Gers manager Dick Advocaat. Zenit took 72 minutes to unlock the stubborn Rangers defence, but it was no more than they deserved for their skilful play, which had demolished Bayern Munich 5-1 on aggregate in the semi-finals. The Glaswegians should console themselves with reaching the final in the first place, after dispatching superior opposition such as Sporting Lisbon and Fiorentina on the way thanks to Walter Smith's shrewd tactics. Once more, the UEFA Cup looked decidedly second best to the Champions League however. Since the second, third and even fourth-best teams in each country have won passsge to the CL, the UEFA Cup has lost a lot of its shine. Its interminable group stages are redolent of the misguided experiment taken by the Champions League in the early 1990s. What made this final go down in history was instead the violence outside the stadium pre and post-match. It is hard to recall the last time a British city-centre witnessed such distressing scenes of football-related trouble, such have been the leaps in improving the game's image since the dark days of the 1980s. Perhaps the riot in Trafalgar Square in London after England were knocked out of Euro '96 was the last. There might have been over 100,000 well-behaved Rangers supporters in Manchester, but their club's whole reputation was sullied by the few hundred who decided to get violent after a big screen failed to work. To cite that as an excuse for lobbing missiles, smashing cars, looting shops and attacking policemen was ludicrous but several fans unbelievably tried to justify the prolonged violence. The dynamite was certainly sitting there primed given the numbers of fans, warm weather and the fact that Glaswegians are tough by nature, are fond of the odd drink (central Manchester ran dry by 4pm) and Rangers then lost the game. So tragic then that an unforeseeable technical failure should have been the spark for such ugly mayhem. Thank god the worst injuries were only bruises and a knife wound. At least now we in England will have some ammunition to return the repetitive Scottish accusations of blame when it comes to hooliganism. For years now the Tartan Army has sought to distance itself from the misbehaving Sassenachs south of the border when it comes to international football games. Having witnessed it myself, I can vouch for the fact that watching Scotland play overseas is an immeasurably more pleasant experience than watching England. While the English invariably end up causing some trouble, whether provoked by the police and local thugs or not, the Scots these days always make friends and have a good time with their hosts. In one foreign country, I even saw the local coppers asking to pose for photos with the kilted invaders. Claims that the Scots have always been lillywhite are all a bit rich however, when one recalls the yearly violence of the Scotland v England clash in the 1970s and '80s, most famously encapsulated by Scottish fans tearing up the turf and breaking the crossbar at Wembley in 1977. Only in the dark days of English 1980s hooliganism did the Tartan Army decide to distance itself in foreign eyes from their neighbours to the south. That Rangers yobs ran amok in Manchester is thus a black mark on Scottish football culture in general, after so many years of good PR. One can only wonder if the boneheads charging after a policeman before bringing him down and kicking him mercilessly, as so horrifically captured on CCTV in Manchester, could care less what others think of their neanderthal comportment. Rangers fans have a repuation in the rest of the soccer world for being headcases - belligerently sporting the Union Jack and Ulster flags instead of Scotland's while chanting of being 'up to our knees in Fenian blood - surrender or you'll die!' Doubtless, those in the know will recall city rivals Celtic invading Seville in vast numbers for the 2003 UEFA Cup Final but without such excruciating scenes in the streets. I felt ashamed to see the UK's being sported so prominently on the backs of those hoodlums, knowing the pictures would go around Europe and many viewers would mistakenly think it was England's flag instead. You can bet half of them are Scottish nationalists too and don't understand it is silly to be flying the Union flag at the same time. To the good Rangers fans who obeyed the law, thank you and I regret you lost the final. To the yobs who caused so much misery in Manchester, thank you for dragging all British football fans' reputations internationally into the mire once again. (c) Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football J-League K-League Betting

UEFA Cup 2007/08 Incredible Rangers reach finals in Italian style The current season has given us yet another unlikely final, as was the case in the previous three editions. The last "normal" final encounter saw Valencia defeat Marseille by 2-0 four years ago, while the following years produced improbable ties like CSKA Moscow vs Sporting Lisbon, Sevilla vs Middlesbrough and Sevilla vs Espanyol. This season's surprise packages are Glasgow Rangers and Zenit of St Petersburg. Rangers have delighted their fans by reaching their first European finals in 36 years, but the neutrals have been horrified by their ultradefensive, utterly negative style. It is no doubt ironic that in their semifinal tie against Fiorentina it was the Scots who built a stonewall in front of their goal rather than the Italians. Since reaching the knockout stage of the UEFA Cup. Rangers have tortured the audience with unwatchable tactics, having scored a mere five goals in eight games (0.6 per match), qualifying on one occasion on the away-goals rule and on another on penalties. Curiously, their previous finals appearance, in the 1972 Cup Winners' Cup, also confronted them with a Russian opposition. Back then they defeated Dinamo Moscow 3-2 in Barcelona, but Rangers' fans fought the police, earning the team a one-year suspension from Europe. Zenit on the other hand have gathered much support all around Europe with their fast combinations reminiscent of the great Dinamo Kiev of the mid-seventies and mid-eighties. Arshavin, Pogrebnyak, Zhiryanov, Anyukov, keeper Malafeyev and the Croatian central defender Krizanac have knocked out the Spanish League runners-up Villarreal, Olympique Marseille, Bayer Leverkusen and a powerful Bayern Munich before taking on Rangers at the City of Manchester stadium. Their games against Bayer in Leverkusen (4-1) and Bayern in St. Petersburg (4-0) will doubtlessly make it into the golden book of the Russian soccer. A victory for them on May 14th would be a just reward for their adventurous, attacking style. UEFA Cup semifinals Bayern vs Zenit 1-1 0-4 Rangers vs Fiorentina 0-0 0-0 (4-2 pen) Finals Rangers vs Zenit May 14th Path to finals Rangers (from Champions League) Round of 32 Panathinaikos 0-0 1-1 Round of 16 Werder 2-0 0-1 Quarterfinals Sporting Lisbon 0-0 2-0 Semifinals Fiorentina 0-0 0-0 (4-2 pen) Zenit Group stage: Alkmaar 1-1, Larissa 3-2, Nürnberg 2-2, Everton 0-1 Round of 32 Villarreal 1-0 1-2 Round of 16 Marseille 1-3 2-0 Quarterfinals: Bayer Leverkusen 4-1 0-1 Semifinals: Bayern Munich 1-1 4-0 Copyright Ozren Podnar & Soccerphile Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football

UEFA Cup report ">Adios Getafe, only big guns remain After all, the UEFA Cup semifinal setup will be worthy of the illustrious tradition of this competition. After the elimination of Getafe, whose best-ever Spanish league standing was last year's nineth, only the teams worthy of European glory have remained. The big hit of the current edition are the Russian champions Zenit, who kicked out Villarreal, Marseille and Bayer Leverkusen in the past three rounds. Led by the respectable Dutch coach in Dirk Advocaaat and a handful of Russian internationals, Zenit reached their first European semifinals, and it is possible that they have not said their last word although their next opposition are Bayern. The ease with which they demolished Leverkusen Bayern, by far the winningest team of the last four, had not seen a semifinal action since 2001, when they eliminated Real Madrid on the way to their fourth Champions League title. Despite a certain anonimity on the continental field after that achievement, Bayern are still one of the world soccer giants with shelves packed with silverware: four Champions Leagues, Cup Winners' Cup. UEFA Cup, Supercup and two Intercontinental Cups. Coach Ottmar Hitzfeld says he sees Bayern in the finals, but after toiling so much against a modest side like Getafe, the Bavarians had better approach their next obstacle with more humility. Fiorentina and Rangers own just one European trophy, a Cup Winners' Cup each. The Italians won the first edition of the competition in 1961, beating who else but Rangers by 2-0 and 2-1. They were on the losing side in the following year's finals against Atlético Madrid and in 1990 they lost a UEFA Cup finals against Juventus. Their last appearance in the semifinal stage came eleven years ago when Ronaldo's and Figo's Barcelone proved too powerful for the Violets. Rangers collected their only continental honour in 1972, after losing two previous finals in 1961 and 1967. In the scandalous final held in Barcelona thousands of Rangers' fans fought with the police, which cost the club one year suspension. After that tarnished triumph, the Blues came close to a final game only once, when they finished second in the semifinal group of the 1992/93 Champions League, behind eventual winners Marseille. Since this year's finals is to be played in Glasgow, Rangers believe the trophy is destined to end up in their hands, but before that happens Fiorentina's in-form man, Adrian Mutu, will have to give his approval. UEFA Cup quarterfinals 2007/08 Bayer L. vs Zenit 1-4 1-0 Bayern vs Getafe 1-1 3-3 (a.e.t.) Fiorentina – PSV 1-1 2-0 Rangers – Sporting L. 0-0 2-0 Copyright Ozren Podnar and Soccerphile Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football J-League K-League Betting

UEFA Cup Tottenham and Everton go out with a drama The English contingent in the UEFA Cup put up a good fight but still went out, albeit in the most dramatic fashion. Penalties, the disease that usually afflicts the national team, were fatal for Tottenham and Everton, who bravely equalized the aggregate score against PSV Eindhoven and Fiorentina in the return leg before it came to spot kicks. Bolton came tantalizingly close against the 2005 finalists Sporting Lisbon, but it will be the Portuguese who will take on Rangers, the last British representatives in the quarterfinals. Rangers, who have had a dream season so far, are chasing four trophies but the strain could prove too much in the final stage of the campaign against Sporting, who are now fully concentrated on the European stage. The last time that a Scottish club made a continental finals was in 2003 when Celtic lost to Porto by 2-3 in Seville. Elsewhere, Bayern will try and confirm their status of the team to beat when they face the Spanish surprise package in Getafe. In the previous round, the Bavarians got rid of Anderlecht in a bizarre replica of their 1987 encounter in the European Cup. On that occasion, Bayern beat the Belgians 5-0 at home and drew 2-2 in Brussels in a game which Anderlecht were winning by 2-1 until the 90th minute. This time, Bayern ran riot in the first leg in Belgium scoring an amazing 5-0 win but suffered a 1-2 defeat at home. Round of thirty two 1st 2nd Zenit vs Villarreal 1-0 1-2 Marseille vs Spartak 3-0 0-2 Galatasaray vs Bayer 0-0 1-5 AEK vs Getafe 1-1 0-3 Bordeaux vs Anderlecht 1-1 1-2 PSV vs Helsingborgs 2-0 2-1 Rangers vs Panathinaikos 0-0 1-1 Brann vs Everton 0-2 1-6 Werder vs Sporting Braga 3-0 1-0 Sporting Lisabon vs Basel 2-0 3-0 Aberdeen vs Bayern 2-2 1-5 Zürich vs Hamburger SV 1-3 0-0 Rosenborg vs Fiorentina 0-1 1-2 Bolton vs Atletico Madrid 1-0 0-0 Slavia vs Tottenham 1-2 1-1 Benfica vs Nürnberg 1-0 2-2 Round of sixteen 1st 2nd Anderlecht vs Bayern 0-5 2-1 Fiorentina vs Everton 2-0 0-2 (4-2 pen) Benfica vs Getafe 1-2 0-1 Rangers vs Werder 2-0 0-1 Bolton vs Sporting L. 1-1 0-1 Bayer vs Hamburger SV 1-0 2-3 Tottenham vs PSV 0-1 1-0 (5-6 pen) Marseille vs Zenit 3-1 0-2 Quarterfinals (3rd and 10th of April) Bayer vs Zenit Rangers vs Sporting (L) Bayern vs Getafe Fiorentina vs PSV Copyright Ozren Podnar & Soccerphile Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football J-League K-League Betting