Football: Mols injury increases Rangers' misfortune

Steve Tongue
Friday 05 November 1999 00:02 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

THE SATISFACTION that Rangers were able to derive from their performance in a desperately unlucky 1-0 defeat by Bayern Munich on Wednesday was undermined by a serious injury to their leading goal-scorer Michael Mols. To the insult of elimination from the Champions' League was added the knee injury suffered by the Dutch striker. A scan is expected to confirm that he will be missing for months rather than weeks.

Under a foreign coach and with only one Scot in the team, Rangers have begun to give the impression of broadening the horizons beyond the merely parochial. Beating Parma in a European campaign that began on 28 July, then doing the double over PSV Eindhoven and twice outplaying last season's beaten finalists, Bayern, they deserved better reward than a back-door ticket to the Uefa Cup. A decent run in that competition, strong as the field now is, would nevertheless engender further confidence and experience, which will be invaluable for what seems certain to be another European Cup campaign - the club's 21st - next season.

From the time that Thomas Strunz put away a harshly awarded penalty after 32 minutes until the last few minutes, the home side did not have a scoring chance. Rangers, in contrast, hit the post or bar three times in search of the draw that would have put them in the last 16.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in