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“Bloody tunnel’s come up four feet short”

Has anyone 'learned' anything, so far, apart from the fact that we could do with a man like Rod Wallace up front?

Changing our left back is not going to determine whether we win the league or not. We need a couple of instinctive and ruthless strikers.

Has this week in been a training camp or a stag "do"?

the man behind the wire.

But I shot a man in Brugge, just to watch him die

Probably didn't see much of it from behind the fence. Maybe for the best.

I hear you but the sample size for getting in a new striker is greater than our need for a LB. We've missed chance after chance (Danilo, Dessers, Lammars) but don't think we've struggled greatly at LB.

Not a priority. We need players that will take the chances that we create. A new left back will not win us the league.

I think folk are taking it all a bit too seriously. Aye, it's dreary viewing but it's more about getting/keeping the squad match fit during the break than anything else.

It's not a game. Its a training exercise.

Come on, it's been an awful game / performance. Can't see any positives that we can take other than getting game time. Probably biggest mistake was to show it live so we can all see how poor its actually been. Don't think anyone is going overboard with the comments.

Some of the comments...Jeso. Its a mid season bounce game on a terrible pitch. We have two aims from this exercise. Maintain fitness and avoid injuries (especially on this pitch)

The match is so dull, I picked up an interesting factoid on Wiki... "The club was formed in 1892 as BFC Hertha 92, taking its name from a steamship with a blue and white smokestack; one of the four young men who founded the club had taken a day trip on this ship with his father. The name Hertha is a variation on Nerthus, referring to a fertility goddess from Germanic mythology."

Imagine booking a player for dissent in a friendly, I've seen it all.

Training matches are never the best place to gauge performances but, after a reasonable first 10-15mins, that was disappointing. Shape was disjointed with too much space between attack and defence. Perhaps most interesting comment is to see 50,000+ folk watching the stream.

I’m genuinely concerned about what we’ve got up front at the moment not just today

If there is nothing to rage about, I propose that we rage about having nothing to rage about.

So it was a stag do?

'I need to get Josh Windass signed as soon as possible' What do i win btw ? 😀.

Could somebody let me in?

Always the same panic merchants

Our priorities should be a striker and creative centre mid. I think Ridvan could be the cash cow.

Pepperoni or meat feat....decisions, decisions!?

That’s a shame isn’t it tbh, especially when the club said they would be playing him etc, in my opinion if clubs aren’t doing that with our players or any players for that matter, then we are within our own rights to rip that contract up as that’s not part of our agreement when he went on loan, absolutely ridiculous behaviour as it’s plain for all to see he is low in confidence

Can I recall Hagi, Lowry and Lammers?

Either she has legs like flexible stilts, or her dress is way too long.

Over dissecting the result in a bounce match in front of no fans on a terrible pitch in a mid season training camp, is a surefire sign of our truly baffling times.

Maybe he wants to go? Maybe he is the only sellable asset that brings money and wants to or is willing go? Borna has six months left and no indication that he won't do a Morelos, Kent etc..

Buzzing for Tuesday night now Is it even on RTV? I'm certainly not going

I'm still thinking about the Germanic fertility goddess. Steffi Graf with a nicer nose, perhaps.

We all said the same when it was pish under Beale in his pre season...lo and behold we carried it into the competitive games. If we're like this against Copenhagen I'll have a bit of the fear tbh, but that's because of the scar tissue from Beale's training games. Hopefully this will do us good rather than be detrimental.

Thanks...took me 15 seconds to read meaning i didn't have to watch this dross.

To early to call the "after the winter break curse" 😀

Have only watched 20odd minutes of both halves thus far. This looks very much like a fitness session than anything else. Starting with three DMs who hardly press or go into the attacking area tells its own story. Second half is more or less experimental and game time again.

Same. Severely lacking

shows why most of us don't bother with friendlies. Absolute snore fest

Kevin Thomson is on co-comms, so I'm raging about that. Qwoooality.

It's coming 🤣

I know it's only a friendly, but I can't be the only one looking forward to posts slagging the players, the manager, the system etc. Thankfully, no UBs and drummers for folk to seethe at today. Yeah, Rangers are back playing football ⚽️ 👏 😀

I believe the Rangers - Vorwarts Berlin tie in the European Cup is our anomaly. The Berlin wall was constructed in 1961 and the political implication was the Government refused Visas to the East Germans to visit Ibrox. A neutral venue had to be found and an agreement was reached with Malmo in Sweden. The game failed to take place on the Wednesday evening because Malmo was fog bound. Rescheduled for the next morning at 10am, Rangers ran out 4-1 winners and, 6-2 on aggregate. Due to the circumstances above, I believe the Rangers - Vorwarts Berlin program is akin to hens teeth?

He's a diamond!

I genuinely feel for Hagi. This is a playing career that will not have a happy ending. Kid has a good brain, communicates excellently, probably has a decent business acumen. Hagi's success lay AFTER his playing days. That pressure is not good for his overall health. He just needs to come to terms with that. Hang em up! A real life awaits!

Explains the career of Peter Crouch. Basically, then, Rangers should recruit young, slim, bony ('angular'), players, and should have them hang from the wallbars for a couple of hours every morning, until they stretch to the desired height.

Apparently, in an interview, or at a press conference, a journalist said to Beckenbauer that he was a great player, but asked him to explain that, as he was not the fastest , and many players would beat him running between Point A and Point B on the pitch. Beckenbauer replied that he would not start at Point A. FRANZ BECKENBAUER 1945-2024 | MARTIN SAMUEL Franz Beckenbauer redefined what a defender could be Late German hero who, at the age of 20, lost the 1966 World Cup final to England beneath Wembley’s twin towers, spent a lifetime exacting his revenge Martin Samuel Monday January 08 2024, 8.30pm, The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/franz-beckenbauer-redefined-what-a-defender-could-be-j2x9lnd7g It was a resemblance to Kaiser Ludwig II of Bavaria that first gave Franz Beckenbauer his nickname. An unfortunate juxtaposition with a bust of Emperor Franz-Josef after a friendly international in Vienna helped, too. Yet by the time he retired, regal doppelgangers had been long forgotten. There was only one Kaiser Franz and that title and reputation rested on his talent alone. Football historians still debate whether Beckenbauer invented the modern position of sweeper — there were certainly antecedents in an attacking sense, not least Ernst Ocwirk of the great Austria side — but what is undeniable is that he made the position uniquely his own. Beckenbauer, more than any player before and quite possibly since, was both the last line of defence and first line of attack. That his greatness coincided with a high point for English international football means he is also inextricably linked with the fortunes of this nation, perhaps more than any other footballer not from these shores. Beckenbauer runs with the ball against the Soviet Union in West Germany’s victorious 1972 European Championship final REX Pelé never played at Wembley; Diego Maradona did not return after mesmerising there in a friendly at the age of 19; but Beckenbauer lost the 1966 World Cup final beneath the twin towers as a 20-year-old and then spent the rest of his career extracting revenge. His German team eliminated England from the 1970 World Cup, ran rings around us in the 1972 European Championships, and then conquered Poland — who had eliminated England in the qualifiers — on the way to their 1974 World Cup victory. That was the first leg of Beckenbauer’s World Cup treble. He won the World Cup as a player and captain, then as Germany’s manager in 1990, and finally as a politician, when he helped claim the hosting rights for the tournament in 2006. Only the last of those achievements has lately lost its shine. Beckenbauer the player, in particular, remains unsurpassed. He is the only defender to win the Ballon D’Or twice, in 1972 and 1976, finishing runner-up on two further occasions and third in 1966. That was the year Helmut Schön, the German coach, decided to sacrifice his creative talents in the World Cup final, detailing him instead to man-mark Bobby Charlton. Beckenbauer breaks away from Charlton during the 1966 World Cup final GETTY IMAGES It was a rare aberration, and negated by Sir Alf Ramsey instructing Charlton to mark Beckenbauer, who had already scored four goals in the tournament and would be voted its best young player, ahead of Alan Ball. For the decade after, however, English players would be devoting their best efforts to chasing Beckenbauer everywhere he went. For fans of a certain age, his name remains the shorthand for any defender who attempts bringing the ball out from the back. When Ron Atkinson joined in games in training, he would provide a mockingly self-aggrandising commentary on his own performance. He was always “Beckenbauer” when on the ball. Describing Dave Bassett in his early days as a player-coach at Wimbledon, Wally Downes told me: “As coach he could play himself anywhere, and he fancied being libero [a sweeper], like Beckenbauer. Two block tackles and a headbutt later, he’d make it to the edge of his own penalty area. . . ” It’s a delightful image, the leaden-footed wannabes trying to emulate the skills of the master. The reality is, even the greatest of them couldn’t come close. Beckenbauer could, quite literally, have played anywhere his coach demanded. Bayern Munich first identified him as a promising centre forward, prodigious enough to have scored more than 100 goals in a single season as a schoolboy. He represented their youth teams in that role but was playing left wing when he made his debut in 1964. He was still a creative midfielder when he was told to follow Charlton, but by the time the next World Cup came around he had reinvented — some would say invented — himself as an attacking sweeper, Germany’s defensive saviour, and playmaker. It was a quite brilliant concept. Beckenbauer’s reading of the game made him an outstanding defender, while hiding at the back allowed him the space to start masterful counterattacking moves. His distance from the forward players did not matter. Beckenbauer had the intelligence and passing range to pick out a colleague running into space — not least his club and country team-mate Gerd Müller — or to start a move by playing raking balls to the wings. His ability to find Günter Netzer helped destroy England in the European Championships and, when the opportunity invited, Beckenbauer would summon his powers as a midfielder and break through the middle on his own. He had quick feet, quick thought, and gave quick passes. He was the most Brazilian German footballer there has ever been. The idea that playing sweeper allowed him to be idle was exploded by Schön’s predecessor as Germany coach, Sepp Herberger. “So many players are like clockwork toys,” he sneered. “They run themselves silly and then stop. Franz is so smart, intelligent and mature he could play until he is 40.” He didn’t, of course. He retired from international and major European football at 31 — one World Cup, one European Championship, three European Cups, four Bundesliga titles, four German Cups, the European Cup Winners’ Cup and an Intercontinental Cup — with a move to New York Cosmos but, by that time, had completely redefined what a defender could be. Even now, with Pep Guardiola’s inverted full backs, we are watching updates of what Beckenbauer imagined for the role. That he should then distinguish himself as a coach should hardly have been unexpected. At the 1974 World Cup his qualities as a leader had already been tested when his team-mates threatened to strike on finding out they were being paid less than the players of Holland and Italy. Beckenbauer talked them down from that ledge, then came to Schön’s rescue when the coach suffered a personal crisis after a group defeat to East Germany. Beckenbauer spoke at the next press conference, made the logistical arrangements for the next game and shared management duties until Schön had regained confidence. It was no surprise, then, that 16 years later he would expertly marshal a German team to overcome Maradona’s Argentina. “The best footballer in German history,” the national team’s present head coach, Julian Nagelsmann, said. “His interpretation of the role of the libero changed the game, this and his friendship with the ball made him a free man. Franz Beckenbauer was able to float on the lawn; as a footballer and later also as a coach he was sublime, he stood above things. When Franz Beckenbauer entered a room, the room lit up.” Indeed. He follows Charlton, leaving this earth only three months later; two greats of the game, still marking each other into eternity.