It has become the norm in Champions League matches that Dick Advocaat springs a tactical pre-match surprise in his starting line-up. And tonight was no different, the Dutchman handing the captain’s armband to Barry Ferguson, who is still only 22, in the absence of the suspended Lorenzo Amoruso and the injured Arthur Numan.
But perhaps the biggest shock of all came up front with Advocaat relegating Billy Dodds to the substiutes’ bench in favour of a preferred strike pairing of Peter Lovenkrands and Ronald de Boer. Despite being the away side, Galatasaray didn’t sit back and attacked Rangers straight from the first whistle but to no avail in the early stages of the match at a rain-lashed Ibrox.
But the Light Blues came more and more into the game but without any real target man it was always difficult to see where that vital opening goal was going to come from. Vidmar had the best of Gers’ early chances but he was denied a clean strike, firstly by a brilliant tackle from Romanian Gheorghe Popescu and shortly after due to poor finishing.
A lot had been written about Popescu’s fellow countryman and namesake, Hagi, prior to this encounter and he lived up to his label of being effortless when the Turks didn’t have the ball but extremely dangerous when they did. It was easy to see why his Galatasaray team-mates feel he tries to run the team and his constant dishing out of orders resulted in an early bust-up with striker Davala Umit who took exception at being told what to do all the time.
Clear cut chances were few and far between and it came as no surprise when both sets of players, clearly feeling the effects of a long first half on a heavy pitch, went in at the break with the game goalless. Advocaat resisted temptation and left Billy Dodds, Neil McCann and Kenny MIller on the bench at half-time although he did send them out early in the second period to warm up.And it wasn’t long before one of them were called into action, the pacy McCann being introduced for Lovenkrands five minutes after the re-start.
But it was Galatasaray who came closest to breaking the deadlock when Hagi played an inch-perfect cross to the back post to the oncoming Jardel but the Brazilian fired his shot just wide of Klos’ post.
As captain, it was up to Ferguson to lead by example and the youngster did exactly that, forcing Claudio Taffarel into a great save with a powerful long-range effort.Soon after that, Vidmar pulled up while on a run down the left wing to be replaced by Scott Wilson but, despite limping off, the Aussie still took less time to leave the pitch than the angry and petulant Hagi who stomped his way to the sidelines before clearly snubbing his manager, Mireca Lucescu.
With 10 minutes to go Rangers looked to have stolen a winning goal when McCann got on the end of an Albertz cross but Brazilian ‘keeper Taffarel made a quite unbelievable point-blank save to deny the Scotland striker. That was to prove the last chance of what was a relatively exciting nil all. But although the Galatasary players lifted their arms in triumph at the final whistle, Rangers at least jet off to Austria next Monday afternoon with their Champions League destiny very much still in their own hands.