Rangers are out of Europe after a ‘mortifying’ Conference League play-off defeat on penalties to Czech side Jablonec, their worst European exit since the Progres Niederkorn humiliation in 2017.
Rangers, who led 1–0 from the first leg, could not protect their advantage and were eliminated after a penalty shootout loss in the Czech Republic.
Findlay Curtis and James Penrice missed the final two spot-kicks for Rangers, allowing Jablonec to progress when Jan Chramosta converted the decisive penalty.
The result means Rangers will not play European football again this season, the first time they’ve been out of Europe before the end of August since the 2–1 aggregate defeat to Luxembourg’s Progres Niederkorn in the Europa League first qualifying round in 2017.
Story of the match
The first half in the Czech Republic was underwhelming for the visitors. Lamin Jawo missed an early chance to level the tie for Jablonec, while Rangers’ best effort saw Tochi Chukwuani’s close-range header saved.
Derek McInnes made three changes at the break, bringing on Curtis, Lawrence Shankland and Connor Barron, but Jablonec created the better opportunities in the second half and forced Rangers onto the back foot.
The breakthrough came through Vakhtang Tchanturishvili with less than 20 minutes of normal time remaining. He fired in from a tight angle beyond Ivor Pandur to give the hosts a deserved lead on the night and equalising on aggregate.
Rangers tried to work the ball forward after that but their attacks lacked quality. Jablonec carved out chances on the counter and, although the game went to extra-time, the Czech side continued to have the better of the opportunities before penalties decided it.
In the shootout, Shankland, Bojan Miovski and Thelo Aasgaard scored for Rangers, before Filip Zorvan’s effort was saved to give the Ibrox side the advantage. But misses from Curtis and Penrice handed Jablonec the chance to win with the final kick, which Chramosta converted coolly.
The scale of the failure is stark, Rangers have spent around £80 million on player transfers in the past 12 months and after finishing third in the league last season, being knocked out of the Europa League qualifiers earlier in the month, they are now out of Europe completely before the end of August.
Pressure mounts on McInnes after eighth straight qualification failure
The defeat intensifies scrutiny on Derek McInnes after a poor start to his reign at Ibrox, including the Europa League exit against Jagiellonia Bialystok and a draw and defeat in their opening two Premiership games.
Performances under the former Hearts manager have been below par, but this was as bad as it gets and it marks McInnes’ eighth failed attempt to reach a European group stage/league phase across spells at Aberdeen, Kilmarnock and now Rangers.
Up next for Rangers is a tough league trip to Aberdeen on Sunday, with McInnes still searching for his first league win as his side sit ninth, five points behind leaders Celtic, with the pressure mounting as Rangers fans are already calling for his sacking.
Speaking after the match, a visibly distraught McInnes said: “First of all I’m embarrassed with the performance. I think the only people who represented the club well tonight were my support staff and the supporters who, to a man, were outstanding, getting behind the team despite watching what we all watched. It wasn’t a good performance by any stretch of the imagination. It shouldn’t come down to two boys, James Penrice and Findlay Curtis, in tears for missing a penalty kick.
“I’m not going to sit here and make any excuses whatsoever, the performance wasn’t good enough. Yes there’s been a big turnover of players, yes we looked inexperienced at times but the responsibility is mine to make sure we’re better than what we served up tonight. We’re elite in everything we do in terms of preparation and the performance lacked in everything.
“We had worked on trying to build in a five and play on the outside, we wanted to be more progressive when we got into the wider areas. Our press wasn’t good enough, when our press was good and we went man for man we weren’t strong enough in the tackles. I thought the opposition were better than us in most aspects of the game. We got what we deserved.
“If we’d won on penalties we would have taken it, of course, but it would only have covered over the cracks. I’m mortified with the performance. I know you can lose games of football but we should have enough in the building to take care of that tonight.”