Rangers drew 2-2 with Benfica on Thursday evening, in what looks like a good result for Philippe Clement’s side.
Tom Lawrence opened the scoring for Rangers, only to see Angel Di Maria equalise from the spot. The Scottish Premiership club took the lead again, and Benfica managed to claw it back.
The second leg of the Europa League match at Ibrox will now be the decider, and there’s no away goal rule any longer in UEFA competition.
Whilst Clement will be happy with the overall showing, there’ll be some frustration that Rangers couldn’t build on Benfica’s woes after the Lisbon club were battered by FC Porto at the weekend.
Off the pitch, there wasn’t expected to be too much in the way of strife, although Friday’s edition of A Bola highlights what they call a ‘regrettable’ moment.
The newspaper states: ‘The Rangers fans’ entry into the Luz was marked by a moment of tension between the security forces and a fan. Speaking in Portuguese, an agent forced the individual to take off the t-shirt he was wearing and, aggressively, stated: “Here you speak Portuguese or we will open your head.” And he continued, regarding the item of clothing in question: “You should have known this was going to happen.” After the threat in Portuguese, the conversation took place in a mix between the Camões language and English.’
There’s no suggestion of fault on behalf of the fan from A Bola, and it feels like there’s some annoyance with the policeman for causing a scene and bringing criticism towards how the match was hosted.