What has the Olympiacos boss got? Rangers Europa League rival boasts incredible pedigree and fears one Ibrox star

Serial-winner Jose Luis Mendilibar hopes he’ll be heading home to Bilbao this year to Basque in a Euro hat-trick, reports Andy Newport from Greece.

The Olympiacos boss led the Greek giants to their first ever continental title last season as they lifted the Conference League trophy. That triumph came 12 months after the Spaniard had also guided Seville to Europa League glory. Now he’s aiming to notch up a third straight UEFA prize, with this year’s Europa League Final taking place near his Basque County birthplace.

Mendilibar’s former club Athetlic Bilbao will stage the showpiece clash at their San Mames stadium in May and the 63-year-old admits he’d love to be there with the Athens outfit he took over last February. First, they have to get past Philippe Clement’s Rangers but a victory over the Light Blues would leave Olympiacos on the verge of qualifying for the knock-out stage having already beaten league phase rivals Malmo and Braga.

He said: “I think that we play all competitions thinking about week by week or match by match. It is very difficult right now to think about this competition in the final, which is also in my country. We are going to go step by step.

“The first thing is these eight matches. If we qualify, then we will have to see the qualifiers. Now we are thinking about the Rangers, which is the team we are going to face. We only think about it. When we won the Conference League with Olympiacos last season, it was the same.

“As we got there, we thought about every qualifier. The final will be held in [my home] country. We want to advance. We want to be among the teams that will advance to the next phase. This is our first goal.

“We try, as we did last year before winning the Conference League, to think