But ahead of their city rivals’ European match at Spartak Moscow this evening, there is good reason to pause and ponder a significant milestone which is approaching for the Russians.
People from Govan and beyond are well versed on the awful events of January 2, 1971, when 66 Light Blues fans went to the New Year derby with Celtic and never came home.
More than 40 years on, their passing in a crush after the full-time whistle brought a 1-1 draw with Jock Stein’s team to an end feels as raw to so many now as it did back then.
The Ibrox Disaster is one of the most shocking tragedies in British sport along with what happened at Hillsborough in 1989 and the Bradford City fire four years earlier.
Around the world, the devastating impact of each was felt, as was the case when football followers perished in the likes of Brussels, Bastia and Johannesburg too.
The same can not be said about the Luzhniki Disaster, a catastrophe few outside Russia knew about for several years after it happened.
To Rangers fans, October 20 marks when their team plays Queen’s Park. For Spartak’s supporters, it’s the 30th anniversary of the day many of their loved ones were lost forever.
What is perhaps most striking to those of a Light Blues persuasion are the eerie similarities between what happened at Ibrox four decades ago and what later followed in Moscow.
Back in 1982, as the Soviet winter set in earlier than normal, Spartak took on Dutch side Haarlem for a place in the last 16 of the UEFA Cup.
They would win 2-0 on their way to a 5-1 aggregate victory but the progression came at the most appalling cost.
For so long, it was wrongly claimed Colin Stein’s late leveller for Rangers against Celtic in 1971 had prompted the crush which killed so many people.
As it was, the incident which caused those to die occurred after the match had ended rather than before it.
Sadly, a goal late in Spartak’s match with Haarlem from Sergei Shvetsov - who later said he wished he hadn’t netted - did seem to spark a stampede that would have fatal consequences.
With much of the Luzhniki covered in snow, the vast arena had little more than 15,000 spectators in attendance and they were crammed into a single section of the ground.
As the clock ticked down on a comfortable win for the hosts, pockets of fans began pouring down a stairwell to catch an early train from Lenin Hills underground station.
While they left, Shvetsov struck the clincher and many of those departing turned back to try to join the celebrations.
What happened next is still somewhat unclear but the end result left hundreds of people caught on icy steps on a dark gangway and chaos ensued.
Few could see what was going on from other parts of the stadium and news coverage the following day in the local press was minimal with nothing more than injuries reported.
The reality, however, is that as they slipped and fell in the darkness, 66 people – mostly youths - were crushed to death, just as had been the case in Glasgow almost 12 years earlier.
Unofficially, the approximate death toll runs close to 350 but such was the way of things in communist Russia at the time, we’ll never know for sure how many were lost.
It was only in 1989, after the Soviets had tried and failed to cover up the nuclear explosion at Chernobyl in April 1986, that some elements of truth began seeping out.
The first public revelations of what might be the biggest mass loss of life at a football match emerged despite the Russian government’s fears of bad news getting out.
In turn, it allowed Spartak fans to openly come together for the first time to both mourn and remember those no longer with them.
Nowadays, a small statue stands at the foot of the stairs where those who died lost their lives and it is common practice for visitors to lay red carnations in front of it.
The story of how Muscovites died there, however many there were, is one many Rangers fans can certainly relate to through their own experiences and those of others they know.
The Disaster of 1971 will never be forgotten, nor will an earlier accident in 1902 or the incident in 1961 which led to the deaths of fans Tommy Thomson and George Nelson.
But just as we should always remember those lost at home, we should always bow our heads in memory of fellow football supporters who have died so needlessly elsewhere too.
And at a time when a milestone anniversary of something so dreadful is nearing for many of those affiliated to Spartak, they are in our thoughts as we pay our respects to them.
