Bring on Rangers!

Six months after their big win at Hampden Park against Liverpool FC, BVB returned to the scene in Glasgow for the second-round match in the European Cup Winners' Cup against Rangers. The defending champions from Dortmund had been proclaimed "the best of the best from the continent" for the 63,900 spectators reading the match programme.  But the hosts were even better on 23 November 1966. Coach Heinz Murach needed just three words to summarise the high-quality 90 minutes: "They were good!" Attack after attack besieged Bernd Wessel's goal. After eleven minutes, Johansen scored the opener. Some delightful trickery from Held, who had previously prevented himself from being caught offside by leaving the field, set up Trimhold to make it 1-1 on 31 minutes. But it was not against the run of play when Smith restored the home side's lead at 2-1 a quarter of an hour before the final whistle.

Yet the return journey via London proved to be even more difficult than the game. Dense fog meant that planes could not land at Heathrow or at Gatwick. The plane's captain had to fly circles over the airports for an hour each and, having looked at the fuel gauge, he realised that his best course of action was to fly to Birmingham. From there, the Borussia team took the bus to London, where the weather had not changed: the fog which had made landing impossible also prevented planes from taking off, so the team did not return to Germany until they had stayed another night in the English capital. So they travelled directly to Kaiserslautern, where the next Bundesliga match had to be played the following day. It finished a 1-1 draw.

In the second leg, both attacks struggled with the frozen ground. The Black and Yellows gave it their all, with Held impressing in particular in front of 36,500 fans, with flashes of the typical Bundesliga style prominent. The reputations of both teams preceded them – namely the claim to play the most modern style of football in the world. But even with superior numbers – Watson limped off the field just before the half-time break – BVB only managed to create two big chances. In the end, it finished 0-0, seeing Borussia eliminated in round two.

It would turn out to be a long farewell to the European stage – it took just under 16 years for Borussia Dortmund to return. And once again, the opponents went by the name Glasgow Rangers. Some 54,000 fans flooded into the Westfalenstadion on a lukewarm September evening. Standing places were allowed at the time, and so the Südtribüne radiated the force which had propelled the team into the UEFA Cup the season before. Burgsmüller had the chance to all but book Borussia’s place in the next round in the first 45 minutes of the first leg alone, but the fair-haired striker, famous for his killer instinct in front of goal, missed three clear-cut chances. After the break, Burgsmüller, Klotz and Zorc missed more good opportunities to make it 1-0. At the other end, Huber cleared off the line with goalkeeper Immel beaten.                                                                                                 

So the teams returned to Glasgow deadlocked at 0-0, where the Black and Yellows again played well, and could have led 2-0 after two minutes, but goalkeeper Stewart pulled off brilliant saves from Eggeling and Keser. Right-back Huber drove his team on, but shortly before the break, the Black and Yellows were hit on the counter-attack, Cooper making it 1-0 on 44 minutes. A quarter of an hour before the final whistle, Klotz missed a huge chance to equalise – a 1-1 draw would have meant that BVB would have progressed. Dortmund left themselves exposed at the back in the closing stages and fell further behind thanks to Johnstone's goal after 83 minutes. What else is there to say about it? It was the highest gate in the club's history to date, with takings of DM 850,000 (€435,000) from the first leg.

When Dortmund celebrated their first league title since 1963 in the summer of 1995 and qualified for the Champions League for the first time, the draw saw them pitted against Rangers once again. This time, they even managed to score – four in total, spread evenly over the first and second games. They were scored by Herrlich for 0-1 and Kree for 1-2 at Ibrox, and by Möller for 1-1 and Riedle for 2-1 in the Westfalenstadion, but both games finished 2-2. Even though BVB still couldn’t claim victory against Rangers at the fifth and sixth attempts, they did manage to qualify from the group and moved into the quarter-finals (alongside eventual winners Juventus).

The last two matches between the sides came in the final days of the last millennium. No one could have imagined that the second leg would see such drama after the first match in Glasgow. Kicker readers would have seen the following passage: "Following the Champions League embarrassment in Porto, Borussia are now also facing an exit from the UEFA Cup thanks to their recent demonstration of footballing incompetence in Glasgow. Things were not looking good for BVB heading into the second leg: never before in their long history in Europe had BVB recovered from a two-goal deficit from the first leg..."

Well, on 7 December 1999, it was time for that to change. Borussia's "last hurrah" – with only 14 outfield players available – saw the players turn up in the mood to play, throwing aggression and passion into the mix to delight the crowd of only 38,000 spectators, who in turn became the "twelfth man". In just the 28th minute, Ikpeba headed home from a corner. Five good chances to make it 2-0 followed, but it looked like the second goal didn't want to come. After 75 minutes, the long grass on the pitch began to take its toll, sapping the energy of the players. But not their hope.

The final phases:

• Goalkeeper Lehmann, forward in a last-ditch effort, attempts to flick on But's free-kick with his back-heel, but the ball bounces out of the box again. Rangers have the empty net in front of them, but mess up the counter-attack.
• The board shows three minutes of injury time. The next free kick sails high into the penalty area, offering another chance to counter. Barbarez stops the counter in its tracks. Rangers knock the ball forward aimlessly.
• 91 minutes and 24 seconds are on the watch when But crosses from the right, Nijhuis knocks down the long ball with his head. Lehmann attempts to strike the ball with his left, but it hits his standing foot. The balls falls to Bobic, who slams home the keeper’s unintended assist to make it 2-0.

After a goalless period of extra time, there can only be one way to decide the match:

A penalty shoot-out!

• Bobic slots home into the left of the goal.
• Amoruso's effort into the bottom left makes it 1-1.
• Nijhuis repeats the trick.
• Van Bronckhorst attempts to play the ball down the middle. Lehmann is diving to the left of the goal, but reaches up with his left hand – and makes the save!
• Nerlinger fires towards the bottom right. Myhre, on for the injured Klos in goal, saves.
• Numann aims for the left corner – Lehmann is there to make the save.
• Having seen three penalty-takers miss before him, Barbarez makes no mistake, slamming the ball into the top left corner. 3-1 to BVB.
• All the pressure is on Claudio Reyna, who will celebrate the birth of his son Giovanni just three years later, but this evening is the most unfortunate man on the pitch: Reyna tries to place it down the right, but Lehmann again makes the save!

It is the first and only victory against the Rangers, who have been playing consistently on the European stage since 2018 following their bankruptcy almost ten years ago, but exclusively in the UEFA Europa League. They reached the last 16 in 2019/20 and 2020/21, falling to Bayer Leverkusen and Sparta Prague respectively. This season, they lost out to Malmo FF (Sweden) in the third qualifying round for the UEFA Champions League, having been beaten 1-2 in both games. In the UEFA Europa League play-offs, Rangers beat Alashkert Erewan (Armenia) 1-0 and 0-0 over the two legs. In the group phase, they started with defeats against Olympique Lyon (0-2) and Sparta Prague (0-1), but they followed that up with a win and a draw against Bröndby (2-0 and 1-1). They secured second place early, beating Prague 2-0 at home. The last match, away against group winners Lyon, ended 1-1.

Rangers Football Club

Founded: 1872
European Cup Winners' Cup: 1972
League wins: 55 (record)
Cup wins: 33
League Cup: 27 (record)
Ibrox Stadium capacity: 50,817

Text: Boris Rupert
Photos: imago images