This BBC article explains how next year’s European places will be divvied out in England. Gretna hanging onbut the end seems to be near.
The chance to focus on the Scottish game doesn’t come around too often but hard on the heels of Rangers making it to the last eight of the UEFA comes the first major final of the season. Rangers has a chance to lift a cup for the first time in three years while in the case of Dundee United it has been closer to fourteen seasons since they had something to celebrate.
The Ibrox turnaround engineered by Walter Smith since his return to the club last January has been incredible. Inheriting a team from French Coach Paul LeGuen that had lost six of twenty-three league games and been knocked out of the Scottish Cup at the first hurdle, Smith went about restoring some much needed confidence and lost only two leagues (the last two and Celtic had already secured the title) the rest of the season.
A place in this season’s Champions League last sixteen proved to be too much but after dropping to the UEFA Cup Rangers have beaten both Panathinaikos and Werder Bremen and await their fate when the draw is made tomorrow (Friday).
Rangers also lead the SPL by three points and have a game in hand over Celtic. However, of the eleven league games still to play Rangers and Celtic have to face each other three times. Both clubs are still alive in the Scottish Cup and have been kept apart in the semi-final round. But first Rangers must see off Partick Thistle in next Wednesday’s rearranged quarter final match.
Rangers may retain an interest in four competitions but Walter Smith is well aware that the Rangers faithful are unforgiving if success is not delivered in regular doses and Sunday provides an opportunity to make it one down and three to go.
It is somewhat ironic that Rangers opponents are Dundee United – the first team Smith faced on his return (a 5-0 win) and a team where he got his coaching start under the legendary Jim McLean. Smith was on United’s coaching staff when they won their first major trophy in 1980 beating Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen in the League Cup Final.
It was the first visible crack in the Old Firm’s domination of Scottish football and by season’s end Aberdeen had won the first of three league titles under Fergie and over the next six seasons Aberdeen and United became known as the “New Firm”.
The next eleven seasons would see United make it to nine domestic finals, the UEFA Cup final, as well as winning the Scottish League and coming within a whisker of a place in the 1984 European Cup Final.
But making it to the final of a competition is one thing, winning is something else and over the ten finals United won only two – the aforementioned League Cup win in 1980 and they repeated the year after.
After McLean’s “retirement” from the dugout after 22-years United went through a cavalcade of managers with a Scottish Cup win over Rangers in 1994 the only highlight. After a televised run-in with a BBC reporter in 2000 the McLean-era began to grind to a conclusion although it would take another couple of years before he sold his shareholding to local businessman and United fanatic Eddie Thompson.
Thompson soon showed himself to be a match for McLean in firing managers as he axed five managers in his first six seasons as owner. It has only been since the arrival of Craig Levein in late 2006 that a level of stability and success has returned to Tannadice.
Levein has United third in the league at the moment and they played Celtic to a scoreless draw at Parkhead on Wednesday night.
There is a real sense of optimism around the club that United can at again be a force in Scottish football although the halcyon days enjoyed under McLean are unlikely to return.
But even though some level of success may be in the future for United this might be the last chance that their owner Eddie Thompson will have to see his beloved side lift a Cup. For the man who put his money where his mouth was to the tune of many millions of pounds is battling what looks to be an unwinnable battle with cancer.
Thompson has already put his financial affairs in order with members of his family being appointed to various positions within the club and Levein was appointed to a position on the board of directors a few weeks ago.
United will be taking close to 17,000 to Sunday’s final at Hampden and many will be wearing special tangerine t-shirts to show support for Thompson with proceeds going to fund cancer research.
North American connection - When I first saw Dundee United play in the early sixties they played in various combinations of black and white. So where did their present distinctive tangerine kit come from?
The year after the 1966 World Cup the United Soccer Association (a forerunner to the North American Soccer League) decided to import twelve teams to play during the summer in North America.
Each team played under the moniker of their adopted North American city and Dundee United became the Dallas Tornado.
The Tornado colours were tangerine and the idea to change kit was planted back then. The switch was made in 1969 with the first British showing against Everton in pre-season friendly.(check half way down to see a United as Dallas team photo).
United’s centre half Doug Smith – a player who many considered one of the best players never to be capped by Scotland – made the Second All Star team along with some other memorable names.
Paul LeGuen’s seven months in charge at Ibrox makes him not only the shortest serving boss of Rangers but only the second to have failed to win a trophy during his tenure. (For trivia buffs the other was the much-maligned Davie White from 1967-69. White had the misfortune to have Jock Stein’s Celtic as the opposition.) LeGuen also leaves the post without a win against Celtic.
It is difficult to comprehend how one of the most highly regarded young managers in Europe could so suddenly become a man with a great future behind him.
Only twenty months ago LeGuen had just led Lyon to a third successive French title on his watch before stunning the football world by resigning. A move to Italy or Spain appeared to be imminent in a matter of days but nothing materialized.
Over the next year LeGuen was rumoured to be ready to sign with a number of European clubs but each time LeGuen had a change of mind. When finally Rangers announced his move to Ibrox to replace Alex McLeish more than a few eyebrows were raised. Even though Rangers and Celtic attract 50,000 plus audiences and enjoy a global base of support the SPL is not normally regarded as a stepping stone to greater things.
Some suggested that LeGuen saw the Rangers position as purely temporary until a big Premiership team – Arsenal was frequently mentioned – came calling. If that is now to materialize LeGuen needs to rebuild his career over the next few seasons as his time at Ibrox will remain a black spot for sometime to come.
Rangers’ SPL form has been abysmal while progress in the UEFA Cup as been the sole source of solace for the Ibrox faithful. The players LeGuen bought have been largely ineffectual, a trait he shares with the man he succeeded Alex McLeish. Both were forced to rake through the bargain bin looking for players that might improve the team’s quality while costing very little.
Neither manager came anyplace close to the extravagant transfer kitty enjoyed – and largely squandered – by #### Advocaat between 1998 and 2001. Few managers can have spent so much money with so little return than the man known as the “Little General.”
Now attention shifts to a replacement. Former Rangers manager and current Walter Smith as well as ex-Ibrox star Terry Butcher are the bookies early favourites. However, don’t be surprised if names like Derby boss Billy Davies and Southampton manager George Burley to surface in the next few days.
I am the soccer analyst for the Fox Soccer Report and appear twice a week - every Monday and Friday at 10:00 EST. I have also been a regular contributor to the Fox Soccer Channel website since the summer of 2004. Over the last twenty years I have contributed to various radio and television programs throughout North America as well writing about the game for newspapers, magazines and websites.
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