Madrid: The Spanish city of Seville will later on Wednesday play host to this season’s Europa League final as Eintracht Frankfurt face Glasgow Rangers in Sevilla’s Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium.
Eintracht Frankfurt will be the favourites and the German side make their second visit to the city after knocking Betis out of the last-16 of the tournament, and then proceeding to beat FC Barcelona and West Ham.
Their visit to Barca’s Camp Nou will go down in club folklore after around 30,000 supporters packed the stands and embarrassed their hosts, both on and off the pitch, Xinhua reports.
The Rangers should have no fear of facing German opposition in the final, having disposed of Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig on their way to the final, although perhaps focusing all of their attention on Europe has come at the expense of their domestic form and they have failed to win any of their last eight games in Scotland.
Tens of thousands of Rangers fans are expected to make the trip to southern Spain, many of them without tickets and Seville’s street cleaners have had leaves cancelled to help deal with the influx of travellers for the Rangers’ first European final since 2008.
“I don’t think anyone going into this season would have expected Rangers to reach the final of this competition.”
“It’s a platform where we can really showcase ourselves under less pressure. All that changes now going into the final,” commented Rangers’ winger Ryan Kent.
“Everybody is expecting us to go and win, ourselves included,” he added.
Meanwhile, the club’s veteran keeper Allan McGregor, who played in their 2008 defeat to Zenit St Petersburg, said, “I know this is a club built on winning trophies but you see Frankfurt winning a semifinal, Real Madrid winning a semifinal and they are celebrating like mad as well.
“Four years ago we were just thinking about qualifying for group stages. Five years ago we were losing to Progress Niederkorn. I came back to the Rangers in 2018. A European final in 2022? If you were being honest with yourself back then, you’d think there was no chance,” said the 40-year-old in the Guardian.
–IANS