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Rangers have reached the last 32 of the Europa League for the second consecutive season and manager Steven Gerrard’s European stats continue to impress.
It was his 22nd European win in his third season as a manager, matching the record set by Ibrox’s predecessor Dick Advocaat and one less than Walter Smith’s account.
Here, BBC Scotland looks at how the former England captain has propelled himself into the kingdoms of the club’s most successful European coaches.
Big results against big names
Gerrard’s most notable successes have been against the Portuguese opposition.
Braga and Porto last season, and Benfica this season, failed to beat Rangers, although Ibrox’s team twice lost two goals to draw at home and away with the latter this season.
Feyenoord were defeated at Ibrox last year before Rangers achieved a draw in Rotterdam against the Dutch. And this season, the Scots won at home and away from Belgium’s Standard Liege and Lech Poznan from Poland.
“Being at this level now and beating the teams shows the great strides we have made as a group,” Gerrard said after Thursday’s 2-0 win over Poznan.
“The challenge now is, can we continue to build it? This is the best I have felt in terms of the strength of our team and I have confidence in the 24 or 25 players that we have.”
Coherence of actions and results
Before 2019, the club had not won two home games in a group stage campaign in either the Champions League or the Europa League. But that statistic ended last season and was emulated this time.
This season was also the Rangers’ first undefeated group campaign in any of the competitions since 1992-93.
The Rangers have lost three group games in three years to Gerrard and won or drew every one of their qualifying games since 2018.
Managing the pressure to qualify
In total, Gerrard’s Rangers have made it through 11 qualifying ties in the past three seasons, including eight two-legged ties and three one-off matches in this season’s Covid-19 affected competition.
Those draws and wins certainly boost the coach’s overall stats in Europe, and players like Walter Smith, Dick Advocaat, Graeme Souness and Alex McLeish had fewer qualifying rounds to deal with.
But since the Rangers were eliminated by Luxembourg’s Progres Niederkorn the year before Gerrard’s arrival, navigating those matches was not a given.
And Gerrard’s team has not been embarrassed in Europe. Of their five defeats in the past three years, four have been away by a single goal, with a 3-1 loss at home to Bayer Leverkusen the only exception.
“I think it is a great achievement to win the group and it is totally deserved,” added the coach.
“Continuing with our performances through all six games, we deserve to be number one and with a little more experience we could have won all six games.”
‘A really intimidating side to play with’ – analysis
Former Scottish midfielder Michael Stewart at Sportsound
With a performance that was not brilliant, he comfortably equalized, beat Lech Poznan, scored two goals and kept a clean sheet. You can not ask for much more. They are so efficient and clinical and it is a wonderful trait to have.
Former Rangers winger Neil McCann on Sportsound
They are creating a fear factor now. They are a really intimidating side to play on how they work. They do not change. They say, ‘okay, that’s how we play, you know how we play, can you deal with that?’ And so far, they have not been able to stop.
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