Gerrard will be wary of Rangers’ Czech list
As John Greig, Walter Smith and Alex Mcleish all discovered to their cost, drawing Czech opposition in European competition can prove an occupational hazard for a Rangers manager.
Dukla Prague, Sparta Prague and Viktoria Zizkov delivered painful defeats for that trio of Ibrox bosses in 1981-82, 1991-92 and 2002-03 respectively, the three previous occasions Rangers have faced a Czech club.
But Steven Gerrard, inset, is entitled to feel confident he can buck that trend when his squad face Slavia Prague in the last 16 of the Europa League.
The bookmakers were quick to price Rangers as odds-on favourites to progress from the tie after yesterday’s draw in Nyon, which delivered an outcome to be regarded as favourable by the Ibrox club.
Under a manager who has now won 24 and lost just five of his 43 Europa League games in charge, Rangers can set their sights on a place in the quarter-finals with some optimism.
But their approach will also be underscored by considerable respect for a Slavia outfit, who defeated Leicester City 2-0 at the King Power Stadium on Thursday to book their last 16 slot.
While Brendan Rodgers’ Premier League high-fliers were not at full strength, it was nonetheless an impressive scalp for the reigning Czech champions.
They have notched up several other eye-catching results in Europe since Jindrich Trpisovsky was appointed as head coach midway through the 2017-18 season.
In a run to the quarterfinals of the Europa League in 2018-19, Slavia enjoyed wins over Zenit St Petersburg and Sevilla before losing 5-3 on aggregate to Chelsea in the last eight.
Last season, 44-year-old Trpisovsky guided them into the group stage of the Champions League for only the second time in the club’s history.
It proved a steep learning curve for Slavia, who managed just two points as they finished bottom of a strong
group featuring Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund and Inter Milan.
Theymissedoutonareturn to the Champions League top table this season, losing 4-1 on aggregate to Danish side Midtjylland in the play-off round, before finishing second in their Europa League group behind Bayer Leverkusen.
Trpisovsky has established Slavia as the dominant club in Czech football, winning two league titles and two Czechcupsduringhistenure so far. Like Rangers, they are currently unbeaten in their domestic league this season, boasting an eight-point lead over city rivals Sparta.
Slavia’s squad is largely made up of native Czech talent, a policy which has seen them develop players such as Tomas Soucek, who is thriving at West Ham United after his £15 million move to London last year. Among the foreign players Rangers will need to be wary of are Romanian winger Nicolae Stanciu, an international team-mate of Ibrox playmaker Ianis Hagi, and Senegalese striker Abdallah Sima.
Still only 19, Sima has made a huge impression since he was recruited from lower league outfit Taborsko last summer.
Initially signed for Slavia’s B team, he was fast-tracked into the senior squad and is their top scorer so far this season with 15 goals in 22 games.
Four of them have come in the Europa League, including the brilliantly finished strike from distance which sealed the win at Leicester, and Sima may pose the biggest danger to Rangers’ prospects of a quarter-final place.
The standout tie of yesterday’s last-16 draw was Manchester United being paired with AC Milan, which will see Zlatan Ibrahimovic return to Old Trafford.
Hearts’ wait for a win in Inverness has entered its 11th year. For all the cosiness between the two clubs in recent weeks, no quarter was given at a soldout but empty Caledonian Stadium.
There was one debuting interim manager, two former Tynecastle team-mates in charge, but a third successive draw to leave Hearts frustrated again. Their last victory in the Highland capital came back in September 2010.
This fixture had subplots aplenty but the critical issue for the visitors was the final result. After successive 1-1 scorelines against Queen of the South and Morton, they wanted far more than this.
Neil Mccann arrived in Inverness midweek as a temporary replacement for manager John Robertson, given compassionate leave after a family bereavement.
Mccann’s first assignment was against former Hearts colleague Robbie Neilson – although he sat in the stand serving the second of a twogame touchline ban.
Liam Boyce’s first-half equaliser cancelled out Miles Storey’s opener before a second half of sustained maroon pressure. The outcome was much the same, though, with only three efforts on target from the
visitors. Inverness announced pre-match that more than 10,000 virtual tickets had been sold for this game which far exceeded the Caledonian Stadium’s record crowd of 7,753.
The final total reached 11,366 as fans of both clubs rallied to donate cash in a very public show of solidarity.
The ground would have erupted on ten minutes when Storey opened the scoring. James Keatings determinedly won a loose ball and lofted it forward for Storey to outmuscle
Hearts defender Michael Smith and fire emphatically beyond Craig Gordon.
Inverness appealed vehemently for a penalty on 19 minutes when midfielder David Carson collided with Mihai Popescu. Moments later, Gordon’s point-blank save prevented Shane Sutherland adding a likely second goal.
In a competitive first half Inverness fared considerably better for the first half hour. However, Hearts’ first concerted spell of pressure produced
an equaliser on 35 minutes. Popescu ought to have levelled with a glancing header from a corner moments earlier. When Aaron Mceneff’s delivery from a rebounded free-kick found Craig Halkett, his downward header was pounced upon by Boyce for a clinical striker’s finish five yards out.
Hearts’ application was visibly better after the break but their cause wasn’t helped when both captain Steven Naismith and right-back
Smith were forced off injured. Boyce hit the crossbar with a late header and Armand Gnanduillet drove a shot across goal. Substitute Jamie Walker stung the palms of Inverness goalkeeper Mark Ridgers, but in truth he was not overly troubled.
Inverness CT: Ridgers; Duffy, Devine, Deas, Harper; Welsh; Macgregor (Mackay 57), Carson (Allardice 65), Storey; Keatings (Todorov 78), Sutherland.
Hearts: Gordon; M Smith (Irving 79), Popescu, Halkett, Kingsley; Naismith (Walker 61), Halliday, Mceneff; Kastaneer (Gnanduillet 46), Boyce, Mackay-steven.
On Sunday, May 22, 2016, Marvin Bartley posted a photo of himself smiling in the sun on an open-topped bus with an endless sea of Hibs fans stretched out behind him in Leith.
It has become one of the enduring images of that extraordinary parade, as the Easter Road side and their supporters celebrated lifting a 114-year curse.
Bartley had been an unused substitute at Hampden the previous day, when David Gray’s injury-time winner secured a 3-2 win for Alan Stubbs’ side, and the Livingston captain insists he would take a backseat again if it guaranteed glory for the West Lothian outfit tomorrow.
"I didn’t know I wasn’t playing until half past one on the day,” Bartley recalls when asked about the 2016 final.
"If Dave (Martindale) was to say to me ‘you’re not playing on Sunday but we’re guaranteed to win’ I would take that all day.
"I just want to win the competition. I want to be part of that winning feeling."
Bartley turns 35 in July and, while he accepts this will almost certainly be his last major cup final as a player, he has warned his younger colleagues to seize the moment – in case it is the last time for them as well.
“There is so much more in it for me. It might be the same for the younger boys; they might not get to this position again. It should not be something you take for granted.
"Whatever it takes to win, I am more than happy to do it,” Bartley added.
Despite remaining an unused substitute for Hibs’ historic cup win, Bartley had been a starter two months earlier when a late Alex Schalk goal won the League Cup for Ross County. Even being part of the Scottish Cup-winning squad wasn’t quite enough for the former Burnley player.
"That disappointment did not leave me for a very long time. Even after winning the Scottish Cup you think, ‘I could have had both’," Bartley said ruefully.
"That is not disappointment I want to feel again. If I can transfer that hurt and tell the boys that that is how it felt to lose in a final … I don’t want anyone else in the dressing room feeling like that, so we need to go out and perform.”
Bartley has previously spoken about needing to be convinced that a move to Scotland was right for him. Come Sunday evening, if Livingston overcome St Johnstone at Hampden in the Betfred Cup final, he could well have lifted two major trophies in five years; something he could not have envisaged doing when he was told at 18 that he wasn't good enough for an amateur team. But after enjoying six seasons north of the Border, he is eager for a chance to prove the doubters wrong.
He said: “I hope some of the people who said to me that I was basically going up to Scotland because I didn’t want the hustle and bustle of playing in England can look at it now and say I made the right decision.
"It would be nice to win the cup and then send a few pictures to the managers who said I was coming up here to semi-retire.
"In football, you make decisions and luckily enough for me it was the right one because of the way my career has gone.”