Rangers 2 - 2 Celtic (Rangers win 5-4 after penalties)

[ian1964 10,416]

RangersHistory ‏@RangersFACTS 30m30 minutes ago

 

Mo Johnston in the Sky Studio for Sunday's semi-final? Excellent!

[Oleg_Mcnoleg 50]

Contrast English's ordure on a page with Germinal's thoughtful piece. He mentions the Bauhaus, ferfuxake!

[ian1964 10,416]

Contrast English's ordure on a page with Germinal's thoughtful piece. He mentions the Bauhaus, ferfuxake!

 

I was a wee bit hopeful after the great Sky coverage the other day it might embarrass the Scottish press into at least trying to respond with a decent article!,silly of me!,Scotland is a bitter wee country with no interest in football.

[ian1964 10,416]

Take this level of performance into the game against them and we can get a positive result!

 

[video=youtube;vicwHibS2-E]

[der Berliner 3,247]

Thought about the players available and how we could utilize them best, we might see a 4-3-3 as usual, with only one position really up for grabs by the second row players ...

 

Foderingham

 

Tavernier - Kiernan - Wilson - Wallace

 

Holt - Ball - Halliday

 

McKay - Miller/Clark - Miller/Shiels

 

 

That would be the most likely line-up, with Clark through the middle and Holt, McKay and Miller roving about (as usual).

 

Coming to think of it, we might also adopt a rather dynamic 3-5-2 or 3-5-1-1 as well.

 

Foderingham

 

Ball - Kiernan - Wilson

 

Tavernier - Holt - Halliday - McKay - Wallace

 

Miller - Shiels/Clark

 

This would strengthen our back line with Ball backing up Tav on the right, who would have more freedom to move forward, but would still have a role as a right wingback. Same with Wallace on the left and Wilson. Halliday is the man in the middle (where he has been all season), while Holt, McKay and Miller rove freely in the attacking line, with either Clark staying central and running his socks off, or Shiels taking a secondary striker role behind Miller. We have lots of pace to burn and could swarm them in their own area, but likewise need to keep Griffiths under control.

[ian1964 10,416]

THEY are the underdogs who fancy their chances, the outsiders who could easily upset the odds. Rangers aren’t expected to win at Hampden on Sunday, but they just might.

 

It was said before the meeting with Celtic last season that there is no such thing as a meaningless Old Firm game, and that is as true now as it was then.

 

On that day, Rangers fans made their way to the National Stadium more in hope than expectation. They wanted to win, but knew they had little chance.

 

This time it is different, though. The side that will stride out tomorrow afternoon have more quality, have more confidence and have the form to back it up as they bid for a Scottish Cup final berth.

 

Reaching the showpiece finale to the domestic campaign certainly wasn’t at the top of Mark Warburton’s to-do list in the summer. But, with the Championship clinched and the Petrofac Training Cup in the Ibrox Trophy Room, Rangers have a shot at glory.

 

It would be foolish to say that there isn’t a gap between Celtic and Warburton’s side and, in all likelihood, it will be the green half of Hampden who are celebrating come the final whistle.

 

It is a chance for Warburton’s side to see where they are and how far they have to go. It is also an opportunity to cause a cup shock.

 

“I hope [that Rangers fans are realistic]. We’re not going into this game with any negativity,” Warburton said.

 

“We want to go and win the game – absolutely. That will never change. But all we are saying is, there is a bigger picture, there is a gap there.

 

“There has to be a gap – Rangers have been out of the picture for five years. Our job is to close that gap.

 

“We have to improve our environment, we have to recruit well, we have to improve the quality of what we do, and if we do that we’ll be okay.

 

“We’ve got to close the gap. How well you do depends on how successful you are in recruitment, how players adapt, and how they settle in.

 

“There are so many factors – if you get seven out of 10 right you are in a good place.

 

“I think any neutral would say Celtic have to be the favourites – and I’m not being negative in any shape or form.

 

“They are top of the Premiership, they are the current champions, and they’ve been in Europe for a number of years with a very strong financial budget. So why would they not be favourites?”

 

Since making the move from Brentford last summer, each day has been a learning curve for Warburton as he has adjusted to life as Rangers manager on and off the park.

 

He has delivered the two pieces of silverware he had to this season and, ahead of four Old Firm fixtures in the Premiership next term, he will now have his first taste of derby day.

 

It will be a new experience for the 53-year-old, but he has done what he can to ensure he will be as prepared as possible for what awaits him at Hampden.

 

Warburton said: “I’m very fortunate to have access to people like John Greig and Walter Smith. I also have a couple of friends down south that I speak to.

 

“Those people have been there and done it. They have a wealth of experience and you have to respect that.

 

“But at the end of the day, it is about myself and David and what we think as a group of staff.

 

“The game has moved and now we have to deal with it. Hopefully, we can put our fingerprint on it and make the right impression.

 

“It’s fantastic. Someone like Walter Smith has been outstanding. He comes in after games and is great to talk to.

 

“You can hear his views on the game, views on individuals, views on passages of play. There are different ideas there.

 

“To be able to tap into someone like Walter Smith is a fantastic benefit to have.”

 

It is not just Warburton who will get his first taste of the Old Firm experience tomorrow afternoon when the action finally gets underway after weeks of talking.

 

For most of his players, the Celtic clash will be like nothing they have ever encountered, but the rewards are there to be grasped if they can raise their game and rise to the occasion.

 

Warburton said: “It’s about saying to them: realise it. If you’re a bricklayer and you haven’t got the skills to do the job then you’re under pressure.

 

“But if you know you’re qualified, you know you can do the job, you’ve prepared well, trained well and eaten well and recovered well, then go and enjoy it.

 

“Rest easy the night before and have absolute belief in how good you can be and go and enjoy the occasion. The worst thing you can do is walk off the pitch with regrets.

 

“Six or seven could revel in it and Celtic might have players who wobble under the occasion as well. Who knows?

 

“We can’t answer that but all I know is we have boys who have come through a strong academy system down south as well, boys who have played in Champions League games and whatever else, so they are used to big games. They’ll be fine.”

 

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/14432019.Mark_Warburton_will_look_at_the_bigger_picture_before_and_after_Rangers__Hampden_showdown/

[ian1964 10,416]

RANGERS make the short trip across the city to Hampden Park on Sunday to face Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi final.

 

If you’re outside the UK or Ireland then you can enjoy the whole game live on RangersTV.

 

Regular commentator Tom Miller will be joined by former Gers defender John Brown to bring you full commentary throughout the 90 minutes.

 

To purchase the game for £5.99 click here, or sign up for a RangersTV Unlimited subscription here to enjoy every game live.

 

If you’re based in the UK/ROI you can relive the full match from midday on Monday while highlights will be available from midnight on Sunday.

 

To watch every competitive match this season on-demand you can subscribe from as little as £5 per month by clicking here.

 

http://rangers.co.uk/news/rangers-tv/cup-semi-live-rtv/

[jhunter 0]

In their last two visits there - the Scottish Cup semi-final last season and the League Cup semi-final this campaign - they have lost an early lead, lost a man to a red card and lost the match, against Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Ross County.

 

english makes an interesting point , it may well come down to discipline on the day, they had terrible discipline at pittodrie also recently.

 

play the match , not the occasion may well play out here.

[ian1964 10,416]

Old Firm's enduring appeal

(FIFA.com) 16 Apr 2016

 

There are many great derbies in world football, but few succeed in ticking all the boxes as emphatically as Glasgow's 'Old Firm'. This is a match with a history like no other, rooted in - and fashioned by - a long and passionate mutual enmity that extends far beyond the sporting arena.

 

The result is that, around the world, even those who know little about Celtic or Rangers tend to have heard tales of the feuds and fireworks that erupt when Glasgow's two tribes go to war.

 

The origins

"A friendly encounter." That, ironically, was how the first-ever Old Firm derby was described in the local press when Rangers accepted an invitation to contest Celtic's inaugural match on 28 May 1888. Such cordiality would, of course, prove short-lived.

 

As the rivalry grew, so did the dominance of the clubs themselves. So large did their crowds and coffers swell, in fact, that a popular periodical at the time, The Scottish Referee, made a sneering reference in April 1904 to the profiteering of "The Old Firm of Rangers, Celtic Ltd". Needless to say, the term stuck.

 

Early relations may have been convivial, but the clubs' respective philosophies made conflict all but inevitable. When Celtic was founded in November 1887 by an Irish Catholic monk, its sole stated objective was to fund a charity aimed at alleviating poverty within Glasgow's large Irish community. It was, however, also hoped that this club would provide a symbol of pride around which these downtrodden immigrants could rally. Rangers, by contrast, were the establishment team of Scotland's Protestant majority and, until a famous 1989 watershed, followed a notorious policy of refusing to sign Catholics.

 

Facts and figures

Aside from the social and political factors that make this fixture so unique, no other local derby is fought out by two such dominant forces in their national arena. Celtic and Rangers boast a staggering combined tally of 172 league championships and Scottish Cups, and their Premier League duopoly stretches back 31 years.

 

Rangers have retained a narrow statistical edge in the derby itself, with 159 wins to their rivals' 145, while an early Ibrox legend, Robert Hamilton, remains the fixture's all-time top scorer with 35 goals. The clubs also hold the British record attendance for a league match - 118,567 at Ibrox on 2 January 1939 - and an even bigger crowd, 132,870, turned out to watch them contest the 1969 Scottish Cup Final.

 

Tales of derbies past

In winning 5-2 against a club 16 years their senior in that first-ever meeting 121 years ago, Celtic established a tradition of unpredictability in the Old Firm that has endured ever since. Regardless of the clubs' fortunes and form, forecasting the result of a Glasgow derby is notoriously tricky, with the 1957 League Cup final a prime example.

 

Rangers, who went into the match on the back of a second successive league title, arrived at Hampden heavily tipped to make light work of a struggling Celtic side. Instead, Scotland witnessed what The Sunday Post described as "an October Revolution", as the Bhoys won 7-1, racking up a British record scoreline for a domestic cup final that stands to this day.

 

In the blue half of the city, Rangers fans still revel in the memory of their 100th league victory over their old rivals: a 3-0 win at Celtic Park in 1999 that secured the title and sparked violent scenes on and off the park. Certainly, for all its passion, much about the Old Firm's history is distasteful and, like any great drama, the fixture has had its share of catastrophes.

 

In 1931, an iconic and tragic figure emerged in the shape of Celtic's John Thomson, a brilliant young goalkeeper who suffered fatal head injuries in diving bravely at the feet of a Rangers striker. Worse was to follow 40 years later when 66 Rangers fans died in what would become known as 'the Ibrox disaster' after barriers gave way as supporters were leaving the stadium.

 

Jock Stein, the legendary Celtic manager of that era, returned from the dressing room to offer help to those injured and dying, and expressed the hope that it would lead to a new sense of perspective in the city. His plea was that: "This terrible tragedy must help to curb the bigotry and bitterness of Old Firm matches."

 

The rivalry today

Although it took longer than Stein would have wished, the Old Firm derby did become marginally less toxic as the years passed. In 2008, this manifested itself in an unprecedented and hugely poignant show of unity when Walter Smith and Ally McCoist - Rangers' manager and assistant-manager respectively - helped carry the coffin of a Celtic legend and close friend, Tommy Burns.

 

However, this old rivalry went on to take a new twist in 2012 when Rangers went into liquidation, leaving the Ibrox club’s supporters to endure the indignity of their team starting again from the bottom tier of Scottish football. Sunday’s Scottish Cup semi-final will, in fact, represent just the second meeting of these sides since the Gers’ financial collapse, and the first since they recently earned promotion back to the top flight.

 

Yet while Rangers are still rebuilding, and Celtic are themselves widely considered a diminished force, the sides’ current status does not, it seem, serve to weaken the appeal of this fixture. As Henrik Larsson, a veteran of both El Clásico and De Klassieker, said this week: “I never experienced anything, either before or after, that compared to my Old Firm games in Scotland. That was the best atmosphere and those were the most fierce encounters I ever played in.”

 

http://www.fifa.com/news/y=2009/m=2/news=old-firm-enduring-appeal-1023776.html?intcmp=fifacom_hp_module_news

[RANGERRAB 3,258]

english makes an interesting point , it may well come down to discipline on the day, they had terrible discipline at pittodrie also recently.

 

play the match , not the occasion may well play out here.

 

It's imperative Halliday doesn't take the bait from the odious Brown.

We need all eleven players on the park if we're to have any chance