Bottling the UEFA Cup Final ââ?¬â?? Fact or Fiction?

[Super_Ally 0]

In light of recent results, Walter Smith, his tactics, his choice of formation and his negative outlook has come under increasing scrutiny. We are all hurting over a hugely disappointing weekend and it has lead to many questions and accusations rightly being levelled at Walter Smith.

 

Less fans than ever before are convinced that the old campaigner has any answers.

 

But where does this accusation of bottling the UEFA Cup Final come from? Is there any basis in fact for this argument? Should Smith have ditched the tactics time and again served him so well and saw his team oust teams of arguably superior quality? Should he have thrown caution to the wind, opened up our team and attacked Zenit from the first whistle? This same side that beat Bayern Munich by an astounding 5 goals to 1 on aggregate.

 

Whilst many are angry that we did not try to win the game by setting out and attacking team from the start, I would argue the reverse was true. If we had completely changed our game plan, the tactics which saw us oust Fiorentina, Sporting Lisbon, Werder Bremen and Panathinaikos in the previous rounds, we would have left ourselves vulnerable to the talents of Arshavin, Tymoschuk and co.

 

Playing a defensive line up aimed at stifling and containing Zenit and hitting them on the break was arguably Smith way of setting out his stall to win the game. We could have gone for the jugular from the first minute and been on the end of a 4-0 humiliation like the mighty Bayern Munich suffered in the Semi-Final second leg.

 

Of course that is mere speculation. But when a team built on defensive strength, McGregor(or Alexander), Cuellar, Weir, Broadfoot and Papac conceded just 2 goals in 8 games on our way to the final. Whilst some may point to the fact that we only scored 5 in these same games that merely goes to strengthen my point and Smith�s case for the defence. If you don�t concede you can�t be beaten. Sure we needed penalties to eventually see of Fiorentina, but for the past few seasons they have been competing at the very top of Serie A and in that same season deposed the Rossoneri from the Champions League places.

 

Whilst many fans contest is a one off game, a final and we should just go for it, are they right if it reduces our chances of winning the match? Sure, in hindsight they can claim to be correct because we did not win. That does not mean that Smith�s tactics, which proved so effective throughout the rest of our European competition were wrong.

 

A number of factors conspired against us going into that final. The attitude of Cousin, costing himself a place in the final day squad. Our fixture backlog throughout the entire season, the number of games played in such a short space of time going into the final was unprecedented. Injuries to key players made our plight even more difficult. At the end of the day though, that is the nature of the game and you cannot fall back on these excuses.

 

Many fans are frustrated. They feel Smith cost them the opportunity of European Silverware. I just don�t think that argument stands up to scrutiny. I don�t want to see our team attacking recklessly, just for the sake of attacking. I do not want to see us battered in the same manner that a Munich team blessed with the quality of Franck Ribery and other such stars were so easily despatched. I want us to play the game that gives us the best chance of victory.

 

Playing to our strength, keeping the game tight and looking to hurt them on the break with the likes of Darcheville, Davis was the correct way forward.

 

That does not excuse Smith negativity in playing a defensive 4-5-1 against teams who are not blessed with a greater wealth of talent. I am appalled at the decision to play in such a defensive, scared to get beat, too scared to try and win manner against your Aberdeen�s and Celtic�s. But let�s not tarnish Smith�s achievements in Europe of last season through an agenda and weak comparison with the dregs of Scottish football and one of the most impressive teams in European competition of the last 2 seasons. A team who went on to handily beat English, European and World Champions Man Utd. no less!

[Frankie 8,552]

I've never watched the UEFA Cup final on TV.

 

But from what I can remember from being at the game itself, I thought we played quite reasonably well over the piece. Conservative yes but we did try to get forward unlike games against Barca etc earlier in the season.

 

The first half we did sit too deep but we looked comfortable defensively and Zenit looked to be struggling to break us down. As such, DA cleverly sat his team back himself for the 2nd period which essentially forced into the game as an attacking force which, in turn, created space for the Russians.

 

Eventually they took advantage scoring from one of our usual poor thrown in set plays.

 

After that we tried our best to to get forward and missed an injury time sitter before they scored another on the break as we committed men forward.

 

All in all, nowhere near as bad or as defensive a performance as some make out.

[Super_Ally 0]

I've never watched the UEFA Cup final on TV.

 

But from what I can remember from being at the game itself, I thought we played quite reasonably well over the piece. Conservative yes but we did try to get forward unlike games against Barca etc earlier in the season.

 

The first half we did sit too deep but we looked comfortable defensively and Zenit looked to be struggling to break us down. As such, DA cleverly sat his team back himself for the 2nd period which essentially forced into the game as an attacking force which, in turn, created space for the Russians.

 

Eventually they took advantage scoring from one of our usual poor thrown in set plays.

 

After that we tried our best to to get forward and missed an injury time sitter before they scored another on the break as we committed men forward.

 

All in all, nowhere near as bad or as defensive a performance as some make out.

 

I've never re-watched it either. Not a sado-masochist.

 

Recent comments were getting to me though and had to have a rant.

 

Whilst Smith's time is probably up, that doesn't mean people can make ridiculous claims about his achievements.

[Gazza_8 233]

There's no doubt about it, the defence got Rangers to the UEFA Cup Final last year. Their performances were awesome. It was the attack that let the team down.

 

Defending the way we did throughout the knockout stages didn't come as a shock. We played defensive against inferior SPL teams so WS would never change that to play against european teams arguable better than ourselves.

 

The bit that really got to me was our attacks. If WS did plan on hitting Zenit on the counter attack then why didn't he instruct players to get forward when possible to support JCD? At times JCD had no one supporting him and 3 Zenit players round him. What chance did he have? We attacked with fear which if you want to win games, especially cup finals you can't do. You need to be confident in your own abilities and that's something that none of our players looked to have in the final.

 

The players would've been instructed by the management and that is why I blame WS for our poor showing in the final. For a club as skint as us, chances are we won't get to another european cup final for many a year.

[Norris Cole 0]

The UEFA Cup Final was one game where I find it hard to criticise Walter's formation.

 

This is in no way a dig at the players or management, or taking any credit away from anyone, but I'll never believe anything other than our run to the final was one of the biggest prolonged footballing freaks I have seen in my entire life. By the time we got to the final, we were way out of our depth. Zenit were a sublime outift, and while the first 70 minutes of the final made the gulf in class look minimal, in terms of quality they were streets ahead of us - I don't necessarily mean in that one game, but in general.

 

As I've said, I understand Walter's formation for the final. What got my goat was things like giving the off-form and ineffectual Darcheville his first (and only) full 90 minutes in that game, and most of all, fannying about with a clipboard for a full 7 minutes after the Zenit goal before bringing Novo on with 13 minutes left - his first sub.

 

But I honestly can't blame Walter for trying to hang on and get a lucky break in Manchester. All we ever had was a 1 in 4 chance or whatever, they really were a better team than us. You could say we had nothing to lose, but Bayern tried going at them in the semi and they got taken apart. Man Utd tried the same in the Super Cup and the same happened.

[Zappa 0]

We held our own against that Zenit team who were a quality outfit. Their first goal was purely down to a mistake by our defense, not down to any genius level football by them. In the 10/15min period prior to that 1st goal they scored, we were looking the better team & I really thought we were gonna score because they were starting to look shakier & shakier by the minute & we were pressing them. If it wasn't for the defensive error/s, we may well have scored the first goal we were looking for & lifted the trophy that day. I'm not even going to talk about their second goal because our defense looked like something out of a comedy sketch show when they scored that one.

 

All in all, I don't think we bottled it & despite a couple of team selection & sub decisions that I might have done differently, I think we should be proud of our showing that day despite not having won it.

[CammyF 7,982]

Like many I haven't rewatched the game, and what I can remember from the night itself is being proud or finally witnessing MY club playing in a European Final. The game itself was a blur, I can remember that we held our own in the first half without creating anything. We then had a 10 minute spell in the 2nd half where we had two or three half chances and a penalty claim turned down.

 

After that, Zenit capitalised on our weaknesses and scored a wonderfull opening goal. Like Sunday, as soon as that goal was conceeded I knew we had lost the game. In saying that, we threw on Boyd and Novo and Nacho had a great chance to level just before they broke away and scored the killer goal.

 

TBH, I fully expected Rangers to play they way we did in Manchester and being a fickle fan, I would have taken a 1-0 victory playing that way and celebrated like there were no tomorrow In hindsight, we could have been more attack-minded, but we could have lost by far more goals - just look what Zenit did to Munich in the semi-final.

 

If I have any regert is that we didn't attack Zenit a little bit more. I did say in the build up, and I'll say it again, we were unlucky to come up against our old friend Dick Advocaat's team in the final as he would ensure that his players didn't take us too lightly given the huge support we would have. Against any other team in the final, we would have had the 'surprise element' that DA took away from us!

 

However, you can't compare the final of the UEFA Cup against Zenit to the CO-OP Cup Final against Celtc, completely different scenarios.

Cammy F

[Super_Ally 0]

I'm not comparing them at all. and i'm asking that fans who are rightly pissed at what happened this weekend don't try and compare them or tarnish that run either.

 

It was undoubtedly lucky, but we played to our strengths and did what we had to to win. That is what sporting competition is about afterall.

[CammyF 7,982]

I'm not comparing them at all. and i'm asking that fans who are rightly pissed at what happened this weekend don't try and compare them or tarnish that run either.

 

It was undoubtedly lucky, but we played to our strengths and did what we had to to win. That is what sporting competition is about afterall.

 

Yip, we played the CL and UEFA Cup run last season like a European team. The Scottish and to a certain extent British attitude is to attack at home and defend away. Liverpool have shown that this doesn't need to be the way and we copied that last season.

 

In the UEFA Cup, not losing an away goal in the first leg is crucial, so 0-0 is better than 2-1 and probably 3-1. If you don't lose a goal at home and can score first on the return leg, you are in the driving seat.

 

This next part is controversial as the difference last season was that we had two centre forwards who were ideal for away European games. Cousin and JCD had pace, strength and could score at the crucial time. They were experienced and knew how to draw fouls and retain posession. We currently don't have that - Miller, Boyd, lafferty and Novo all have their positives, but none of them can say that they had the ability to play the lone striker like JCD and Cousin could and both those players were ideally suited to that type of formation and tactics.

 

Cammy F

[Super_Ally 0]

Have to agree again, fully, mate.