By Scott Greer

Outside of Rangers reaching the Europa League final in 2022, the Old Firm have been more than disappointing in European competitions in the last three seasons. However, this season the two teams look to be changing that narrative.

Rangers since that campaign that took them to Seville, have set the worst record ever in the Champions League with the lowlight being a 1-7 thrashing at the hands of Liverpool at Ibrox.

The following year, Rangers qualified for the Europa League and ultimately got knocked out of the competition by Benfica after running them close over two legs. That campaign did have its shocker too with a 2-1 loss to Cypriot side Aris Limassol.

This season has been better in Europe, despite a poor result to Dynamo Kyiv that knocked the Gers into the Europa League.

So far, Rangers have picked up seven points out of four games and with four games remaining it is seen as not bad going so far when taking into consideration that the threshold for qualifying for the knockout stages of this new format is 10 points.

Celtic on the other hand have been up and down since 2022 in Europe, although having unrivalled success domestically since then and having a clear run at UEFA’s top competition, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing.

In the 2022/23 season, Celtic got drawn a relatively tough group with Leipzig, Shakhtar Donetsk and Spanish giants Real Madrid being the standout. Realistically speaking Celtic should have achieved 3rd in the group but did finish 4th behind Shakhtar labelling it as another disappointing European run.

That season did see Celtic play far better in the Champions League but the results just weren’t there.

With Brendan Rodgers’ return in the 2023/24 season, it was seen as vital that Celtic improve, even with a harder looking group on paper this time around, facing Atletico Madrid, Feyenoord and Lazio. They once again finished 4th.

Since 2022 Celtic had played 12 Champions League matches and only won once in a dead rubber with Feyenoord.

This season however, much like their counter parts, they are progressing well in the new Champions League format, albeit suffering a 7-1 hammering at the hands of Borussia Dortmund. Currently, they are sitting on 7 points like their rivals and are on track also to reach the knockouts of the competition for the first time since 2013 when Neil Lennon was the manager.

Celtic have been successful so far in this years UEFA Champions League (Credit: AP)

When you compare Celtic and Rangers to teams outside the top 5 leagues (English Premier League, Ligue 1, Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga) like Benfica, Sporting Lisbon, Ajax and Feyenoord, the Glasgow clubs are being put to shame.

Benfica being the best example with the Portuguese club reaching the Champions League quarter-finals twice and Europa League quarter-finals during the last three years.

Through the last two seasons Benfica have spent over £176m on players, even though that isn’t in the same stratosphere as Celtic and Rangers, Benfica do sell really well.

With recent examples of players like Enzo Fernandez being bought for £36m from River Plate and was sold for £101m the next summer. Other examples being Goncalo Ramos brought through the academy and then sold for £54m, the same for Joao Neves as he was also sold for £49m.

Looking at the academies at Rangers and Celtic it can be seen as more than disappointing. The only successes to be sold through the two academies are Nathan Patterson and Kieran Tierney in recent years as they both produced a huge sum of money for the two clubs.

Other than those two examples it’s clear that the academies haven’t produced anywhere near as much as they should be.

Currently, the buzz phrase going through Ibrox is the “player trading model”, and that model in question is similar to what Benfica have done or even Brighton, but at a smaller level. With players at the club like Jefte, Nedim Bajrami and Connor Barron being aimed to be sold at a bigger sum for what they were bought for originally.

Celtic have this model essentially perfected with players being sold for millions like Jota, Liel Abada and Matt O’Riley. The squad also has a few players in the squad lined up in this pipeline like Cameron Carter-Vickers, Alistair Johnston, Paulo Bernardo, Nicolas Kuhn and also summer signing Arne Engles.

When this model is firing on all cylinders it’s clear to see what the rewards can be like, but it also needs its academy prospects to step up and deliver also. But for Celtic and Rangers currently it’s about staying the course and continuing to do well in Europe as both sides are back in action this week.