It's time for the UEFA Cup First Round! That bittersweet experience that should serve as the ultimate impetus for Rangers to get their domestic act together, so they are not in this competition again next season.
It's not that the UEFA Cup is such a bad thing, although everyone prefers the Champions League. Playing Paris St. Germain and Feyenoord last season were not bad nights of football at all, and some of the other clubs who are in the event, Lazio, Chelsea, FC Porto, reveal it can be some good stuff this year as well. But the first couple of rounds tend to feature the opportunity for clubs with big names like Rangers, to get embarrassed by some rather obscure names.
Gers are well familiar with the predicament from domestic trials. If they lose points to a Dunfermline, they are partying on the bars of that town like it's V-J Day, but if they hump the minnow in question, it's "that's what you are SUPPOSED to do."
But the first round of Europe is more dangerous, because the team are playing a relatively unknown quantity, and one that has enjoyed some success domestically (or they wouldn't have qualified).
Of course, none could be as unknown as last year's first round opponent, Anzhi Makhchakala (or something like that). The Russian (sort of) team was in the midst of various bits of Chechen unrest, and as a result, Gers were unable to scout the team. Then manager Dick Advocaat went to the unusual end of putting out an all points bulletin over the club's Internet web site to gather information, any information, about the team (it's not true though, that would-be informants had to sign up for some kind of bogus subscription online before they could give DA the goods on the other team).
Now, determining who the opponent might be is difficult, but a safer play with your bookie is that the away leg will be somewhere you don't want to go.
With 96 teams in the round, Gers are certain to be seeded. With the seed, Alex McLeish won't have to worry about facing the likes of Italian giants Lazio or Parma, Spanish clubs Celta Vigo or Alaves, German quartet Hertha Berlin, Werder Bremen, Schalke or Stuttgart, or frog princesses Paris St. Germain or Bordeaux. Also avoided are formidable clubs from in-between nations like Anderlecht of Belgium or Sturm Graz of Austria, plus Porto, Sporting Lisbon and Boavista of Portugal. Other teams seeded in the first round, having arrived in the UEFA Cup by virtue of being bounced out of the Champions League qualifying round (as Rangers did last season), are Brondby of Denmark, Sparta Prague and Partizan Belgrade, and oh yes, crosstown choke artists Celtic FC will also be in this round, although clubs from the same country cannot face each other until much later in the competition.
UEFA divide the teams into six group of 16, based on geography, with the emphasis on keeping too many teams from a certain corner of the continent from being grouped together.
But the Grandmaster wanted me to look at who we might play, not just who we won't. Among the 48 teams in the unseeded pool, 26 are from eastern Europe. Perhaps the most recognizeable name among the whole lot, other than Scots clubs Aberdeen and Livingston (if they make it), is Red Star Belgrade, although that club could graduate to a seed depending on the final results of the qualifying round Thursday night. Other possibilities (48-1 for each, to be technical about it), include Legia Warsaw, Maccabi Tel Aviv, CSKA Moscow and both Rapid and National Bucharest. Former Hungarian heavies Ferencvaros are in the list, as is Dinamo Tbilisi of Georgia.
Among the more desirable away legs for supporters are HJK Helsinki, Austria Vienna, Brann Bergen and Viking Stavanger of Norway, AIK Stockholm and Goteborg of Sweden (a little revenge with the latter maybe?), and, depending on your tastes, APOEL Nicosia of Cyprus.