Aberdeen goes out, Celtic crash out of Champions League, Rangers roll through.
Despite another strong showing from Rangers, the Scottish Coefficient took a hit this week with both Aberdeen and Celtic going out.
Rangers 3 – 1 FC Midtjylland (Rangers win 7-3 on aggregate)
This is a Rangers blog so you should know what happened here. After an impressive outing in the first leg Rangers came back to Ibrox and put the tie to bed in impressive fashion. While I think the teams were more evenly matched than the eventual aggregate score ended up being, this was one of the more impressive results Rangers have had in some time over a high-quality side. Rangers go through to the Playoff Round and will face Polish side Legia Warsaw.
Aberdeen 0 – 2 Rijeka (Rijeka wins 4-0 on aggregate)
Aberdeen needed a strong performance in this one after falling behind 2-0 after the first leg, but Rijeka wasted no time in putting the tie all but out of reach with a goal in just the 10th minute. With the away-goal advantage, their lead was essentially 4 and the tie was put to bed. The Croatian side scored once more in the first half to emphatically put the tie to bed.
While it is worth mentioning, that Aberdeen consistently getting a few rounds deep into qualifying is nothing to be ashamed of for their club, there is no way that this isn’t hugely disappointing. They’ve been this far so many times recently and just failed to get over the hump, the fact that they fell so emphatically in this round makes it even more painful, especially coming off a bad loss at St. Mirren in domestic play.
As far as the coefficient is concerned, Aberdeen still did a decent job although it would’ve been nice if they could’ve at least gotten a draw in this leg to give one last bump to the coefficient before they left the competition.
Celtic 3 – 4 CFR Cluj (Cluj wins 5-4 on aggregate)
I mean… wow. This space is a space where we try to avoid laughing at other Scottish teams, even Celtic, but it’s hard not to at the collapse that happened at the end of this match. There was also some bizarre coaching decisions made by Neil Lennon.
Celtic will be hugely disappointed again, but the reality is that for the coefficient and general health of the Scottish game this isn’t actually that disastrous. Champions League gives more coefficient but Celtic will have plenty of chances to add points in Europa League (where they should be able to make the group stages) but won’t get another huge influx of Champions League cash that only widens the money gap between them and everyone else.
In a basic sense though, this is disappointing for the Scottish game. It’s hard to get anyone to take your league seriously when the team that has utterly dominated it for nearly a decade keeps getting embarrassed in Europe.
Overall not a great week for the coefficient, but as long as Celtic doesn’t have a total collapse and still progresses in Europa League we are still on track for a strong coefficient for this year. Once again, it would’ve been nice if Aberdeen or Celtic could’ve at least drawn in this leg. Both would’ve still lost but they would’ve at least given another small bump. This is especially true for Celtic who allowed Cluj’s go-ahead goal deep into stoppage time.