Rangers pay homage to Walter Smith with dogged display straight out his playbook - Keith Jackson's big match verdict

Every once in a while – but not often enough around these parts – an opportunity like this presents itself. A chance to creep up behind history and tap it gently on the shoulder.

And last night in Leipzig, without doing anything spectacular, Rangers managed to tiptoe their way to within 90 minutes of a Europa League final in Seville, with the kind of a disciplined, doggedly defensive performance which might have brought a smile to the face of the last man to lead them so far.

Yes, RB Leipzig finally broke through five minutes from time to claim a one-goal lead heading into next week’s second leg.

But Walter Smith would have signed for a 1-0 defeat before a ball had been kicked in Germany. And Giovanni van Bronckhorst didn’t need a dark blue cardigan to pay homage to the great man on a night when his side did what they needed to do just to stay in the fight for another shot at glory, 14 years on from their last tilt at one of UEFA’s titles.

With their star striker in the casualty ward along with his most able understudy, logic dictates this last-four tie was probably meant to be as high as Rangers could possibly hope to soar in European football’s rarefied atmosphere. After all, how can they be expected to keep on smashing through glass ceilings in this competition when they don’t even have a Roofe?

It was up to van Bronckhorst to come up with a tactical plan which might be capable of cancelling out his own rotten bad luck.

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