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Ryan Kent slipping the ball past Kevin Trapp, Connor Goldson not breaking the habit of the competition and making a defensive error, a smidge higher from Aaron Ramsey on his penalty, those were the margins that might have stood between Rangers and glory. It is frankly hard to believe that they ever got so close.
The age in which provincial superpowers were serious contenders for Europe’s biggest honors was supposed to have passed us by. Even the second tier Europa League is a prize to be fought over by big names. Of its last 13 winners, 12 have come from the Premier League, La Liga and now, with Eintracht Frankfurt’s name etched on the trophy, the Bundesliga. Since Rangers were last in the final back in 2008 only two teams from outside Europe’s top six leagues have been beaten in the final, Ukrainian side Dnipro and Ajax.
UEFA tacitly acknowledged as much this season. If clubs such as Rangers were going to be lifting continental trophies in May they would have to do it in the newly created Europa Conference League. Not quite. On another night this Rangers team would have been worthy winners, a team who had got to Seville the hard way, two of the competition’s biggest powers sent home from Ibrox baffled as to how they had been outclassed by Scotland’s second best team.
Football is won on the balance sheets in 2022 and frankly Rangers, a great white shark in a garden pond, should not be able to compete. Even Eintracht Frankfurt, a midtable Bundesliga club, earn twice as much in revenue as their Glasgow opponents. In 2019-20 the Slipper Kickers — nicknamed for the shoe manufacturer that bankrolled them in the 1920s — had commercial and advertising revenue 10 times greater than the $3.7million Rangers earned. Oliver Glasner’s side may hardly have the financial muscle of the Premier League but they did at least merit a place in the 2019-20 Deloitte Football Money League. Rangers were not worthy…
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Source : cbssports
