Rangers 0-0 Bilbao: Ibrox side upset odds, stellar effort keeps UEL dream alive

Those rangers who travel to North -Spain next week can be tempted to make a provisional booking in which hotel they also put their hats.

To be honest, after having arrived this monumental character test, you would not bet on the side of Barry Ferguson who returns to Bilbao when the Europa League final is being performed there on 21 May.

Where do you even start rationalizing the wild oscillations in form that we have seen on this season in the course of this season?

Able to lose at home to Queen's Park, St Mirren, Motherwell and Hibernian, but still being able to match another nice European side if they had the right to do that? It goes beyond all logic.

What turned out to be a strict examination for the Ferguson players. As if it was confronted with the fourth best side in Spain was not a task, they had to play a man light for 77 minutes after the resignation of Robin Propper.

The brainless fault of the Dutchman on Inaki Williams was rightly punished with a red card after he initially escaped a yellow.

Rangers may have folded the following minutes. Basically, their 10 men remained in the task.

Because they finally left the arena, they could no longer give their bodies, they were further exhausted by the departure of Dujon Sterling. After they have committed all their substitutes, they ended up with nine men.

One night when Ferguson had no failure in his side, the hero of the hour was Liam Kelly. Selected for Jack Butland, the Scot has saved a fine to ensure that Rangers is very contrary.

This was another striking example of the heights that these players can scale when everything is on point.

Again unrecognizable from the mob, which lost last weekend during the Paasweg Paas in the Paasweg Paas, they left nothing behind to protect a valued drawing in the first place.

The players of Ferguson were everything he hoped on Monday after a long-term heart to be. Brave and fully dedicated in everything they did, they refused to nod, even when the pressure of Bilbao threatened to overwhelm them. What a way for a sixth consecutive defeat at home to be avoided.

After he had seen the place empty with 20 minutes left at the weekend, the Ferguson players had the right to cherish in the cheers that rained from every supporter in every standard on the time-up.

The former skipper had spoken in the structure of how the weak nature of some of the recent displays on the side had done him.

His estimate that the Basques 'A Step Up Again' from Fenerbahce was on the money. They were smoother than the Turks, faster and more physically. Yet Rangers just found something to hang there.

Nobody needs to say that the Scots still need an extraordinary effort to make the semi -final. Bilbao's only home defeat in La Liga this season came in August against Atletico Madrid. They have not lost any of their five European games at the San Mames Stadium.

Yet Rangers will now travel just as much as expectations.

Rarely has a line-up called so much speculation. After the gloomy defeat against Hibs, Ferguson had promised changes and he was faithful to his word. Kelly's recording was the headline news, although Bailey Rice's selection was a big call from the manager for his first European start. The 18-year-old acquitted himself well in difficult circumstances before he was stretched just after the hour.

Ferguson's assessment of Bilbao as a British team was completely accurate. For all companies offered on the wings by the Williams, Inaki and Nico brothers, they were also not strangers for a long ball to Maroan Sannadi.

The competition was open in the moments before Propper took the long walk.

Vaclav Cerny was the first chance, drove the right flank and shoots closely wide with a floater. But optimism among home fans would be short -lived.

Nico Williams played cute in Sannadi in a flash. Propper invented the ground and blocked the first effort and then breathed a sigh of relief while the continuation of the striker inches went wide from the distant pole.

The next involvement of the Dutchman was a disaster. Not aware of the fact that he did not have to commit himself to a challenge on Inaki Williams, his tackle on the edge of the box was dangerous.

The Romanian referee Istvan Kovacs flashed a yellow card, but was persuaded to have a look at the incident of Var Catalin Popa. Propper argued for his innocence and slowly shocked from the park. An already difficult task suddenly became a lot harder.

Ianis Hagi tried to make something out of nowhere, was felled by Ruiz de Galarreta. The Spaniard rightly grabbed a yellow card, but not before Ferguson was warned because he was in his appeal.

Rangers already needed the luck they could get. The first slice arrived when Sannadi cut the outside of the upright upright.

Inaki Williams, livelier than his brother, had blocked one severe strike by Leon Balogun and was immediately thwarted again by the slider of Ridvan Yilmaz.

In general, however, Ferguson would have been satisfied with the way in which his side defended Kelly's goal.

The opportunities for people in blue were hard to find. Cyriel Dessers may have the feeling that he should at least have hit the target with a shot in turn after the intelligent header of Rice had kept an attack alive.

Kelly certainly earned his crust in the final moments of the first period. After he had tipped Sannadi's rising shot over the top, he produced a nice dip, saved his left to prevent Oihan Sancet's header from struck him.

The pressure of Bilbao only took intensified after the break. Kelly knew nothing about Sannadi's flashy strike of the beaten cross of Oscar de Marcos.

Fortunately for the keeper, the ball became centimeters wide when he looked easier to score.

Connor Barron replaced the affected rice after the great night of the teenager ended in the terrible sight he was taken away by stretchers.

With 76 minutes on the clock, the resistance of Rangers looked like it had finally broken.

Alex Berenguer brought down a long ball to play in Colleague sub Gorka Guruzeta, his effort was only saved by Kelly for Berenguer to wipe the rebound home.

VAR's intervention brought joy and despair for the home fans. The goal was excluded from offside. But after having seen an earlier handball by Sterling, the officials then awarded a penalty.

In the midst of extraordinary tension, Kelly held his nerve and let a leg stretched out when he dived to the right of his right to ensure that the Berenguer site ended up in the middle of the standard.

This was not the night of Berenguer. After he believed that he had found the top corner with a curls, Balogun stretched his neck and sent the ball in front of a corner.

With Sterling Hobbling Off, Rangers 12 had to see minutes with nine men.

Somehow they crossed the line. They will travel to Spain with the opportunities stacked against them, but still very much in this draw.

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