wonderful chance for light blues to impress scotland’s soccer credibility on the rest of europe – smith

Walter tells Rangers to live the legend in final glory push

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Rangers manager Walter Smith has been pleasantly surprised by his team’s run to the final of the Uefa Cup – and has challenged his players to take on the mantle of legends by defeating Zenit St Petersburg in Manchester tonight.

The Light Blues remain on course for a quadruple, with the Uefa Cup the second stage of a four-prong chase for success which has already landed the League Cup.

Rangers have beaten Panathinaikos, Werder Bremen, Sporting Lisbon and Fiorentina to reach their first European final in 36 years and Smith is looking for one last push from his players.

He said: “Once you reach the quarter-final stage, you start to think about the final and realise just how much it means to everyone.

“It starts to take over everything else and it has done for the last few days. We had a difficult weekend and had to concentrate on the Dundee United match, but now we are here we will try to win this trophy.

“We started the Champions League section very well and managed to get a place in the Uefa Cup.

“The European competition isn’t one we thought we would get this far in so it’s a nice surprise for us.

“Zenit have also had a terrific season so it will be a very difficult game.”

While Zenit were able to have three of their league matches postponed to prepare for the final, Rangers did not even have a free weekend ahead of their biggest match in decades.

They beat Dundee United 3-1 at Ibrox on Saturday in highly controversial circumstances. Kevin Thomson, though, was injured in the SPL game with the Arabs and could yet miss tonight’s final.

But Smith insists all thoughts of fixture congestion and rows over league extensions must now be put on hold. He added: “We would have liked a weekend off to catch our breath, but we are over it.

“The players have settled down now and I’m sure all thoughts are now on playing the game.

“We have managed to clear our heads and we now look forward to the game.”

Celtic reached the Uefa Cup final in 2003, losing to Jose Mourinho’s Porto in Seville, and Smith believes this is another chance to fly the flag for Scottish football. He said: “Scottish football will go on regardless of what happens, but it does bring a bit more credibility to the game in this country.

“Sometimes people don’t think it’s of a good standard so it’s nice for one of the clubs to get there and show we can produce a level of football and that our teams can still compete for European trophies.”