European football for Scottish clubs increasingly looks to be less of an adventure than an unwelcome intrusion into our domestic fare.
I wonder if our usually short lived forays to the continent are worth the grief entailed.
With Aberdeen and Motherwell both going out at an early stage, Celtic and Rangers will once again carry the Scottish flag abroad.
It’s great stuff for fans of both clubs and depending on how they do there’s the possibility of an automatic Champions League place for our Premiership winners next season.
😎🍋 The goal that sent us through to the @EuropaLeague group stage!
We are in 𝐏𝐨𝐭 1️⃣ for the #UELdraw – tomorrow at midday ⚽️#COYBIG 🍀🟢
➡️ https://t.co/w46px3ienU pic.twitter.com/fMXJJn5x85
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) October 1, 2020
The regular paucity of progress by the other Scots clubs in Europe, though, continues to be galling – but that isn’t the fault of the Glasgow giants.
They’ve traditionally swept almost all before them domestically and, while fans of other teams may rage at that, the truth is that other boardrooms have by and large genuflected, scraped and bowed like feudal vassals to both clubs.
Our game should have been re-organised long ago to ensure a much more equitable share of wealth and that would have allowed some serious competition to the Glasgow pair.
However, successive Scottish chairmen have willingly acquiesced without murmur to the power brokers at Celtic Park and Ibrox.
There is now no turning the clock back.
The two behemoths utterly dominate at home and any European success – and that is very unlikely in terms of actually winning a trophy – will arrive only in Glasgow.
The rest of our game hangs on to their European coat tails, with supporters of other clubs often simultaneously hoping that both will fall on their faces in Europe while also crossing their fingers they’ll progress in order to boost our Euro co-efficient.
How to play out from the back.
A video guide. pic.twitter.com/Lup8meSlrB
— Rangers Football Club (@RangersFC) October 1, 2020
Both clubs themselves are small beer on the Euro scene and, if they could, they’d leave Scottish football like a shot for England or elsewhere.
Then they’d be able to pursue their ambitions to grow much bigger than they can ever hope to be here.
For now, though, they’re stuck with us and we’re lumbered with them.
So while the other Scottish clubs fall by the wayside, often to clubs we feel aren’t our equal, and usually at the first or second European hurdle, our hopes rest on the two clubs that the rest of the country feels ambivalent about at best and at worst dislikes deeply.
It’s a paradox with no end in sight.
Internationally, our hopes of even meagre success are slim, so any chance of glory must come from the club scene and that can only be with Celtic and Rangers.
Short of the rest of Scottish football growing some backbone and challenging the distribution of monies and resources in our game, the future in Europe for all but the big two will be an annual fleeting jaunt.
Those wasted trips will end up costing them money which they can ill afford and causing grief in terms of injury and fatigue for the domestic matches which follow a bleary arrival home in the early hours from some far flung corner of Europe.
I’m not sure it’s worth all the bother for supporters – or players.
