Fiorentina 0 Rangers 0 (0-0)Agg Rangers Win 4-2 Penalties

Posted on May 2, 2008 
Filed Under Uefa Cup

Rangers made there first European final since 1972 after this dramatic win over Fiorentina in a penalty shoot out after nearly 3 hours on football with ended goalless.Rangers made a good start to the football match & were a match for Fiorentina for the first few minutes & it took right until the 20th minute before Fiorentina really threaten Rangers goal.But Fiorentina started to take the game Rangers & put on lots of pressure & they had there best chance when Massimo Gobbi put in a cross into the box the Rangers Keeper Alexander then failed to collect the ball but Papac was on hand to quickly head the ball off the line.
Not really much happened for the rest of the first half as both defenses kept each other at bay apart from Marco Donadel for Fiorentina was subbed as he had got himself a injury & was replaced with Zdravko Kuzmanovic but it was stalemate at the break.     Walter Smith


Fiorentina started to press Rangers at the start of the second half as they were looking for this goal to send them to the final.Pazzini had a good chance when he shot just wide & then Ujfalusi had a shot that just went past the post would we get a result tonight no one know but they were asking will we get a goal?.It took Rangers 76 Min’s to test Fray in the Fiorentina goal when Steven Davis had a prodded effort from 15 yards but it was easily held Vieri then could have become the hero when he was 3 yards out but instead of hitting the net he dwelled on the ball.
Rangers started to threaten on the brake & it took a fine save from Frey when Whittaker sent a curling shot towards the goal but the game had no more live action & the game ended up going into extra time.During extra time Vieri had a least 3 chances to score & Kuzmanovic sent a header narrowly wide for Rangers Cuellar had a fantastic header straight at the keeper Frey & Cousin’s shot went high over the bar Cousin then turned into the villian after a stupid action of head-butting Fabio Liverani got him his second yellow card after getting one earlier & the ref had no option but to send him off & reduce Rangers to 10 men for the last ten minutes.
Rangers then just played out those ten minutes to send the football match to penalties.Rangers captain Ferguson had his penalty saved but then so did Liverani who was denied by Alexander the rest of Rangers penalties were all scored but it was Veteran Vieri who became very unpopular in Fiorentina when he missed his penalty & sent Rangers into the Uefa cup final & another English team in a European final. 

                   Barry Ferguson         Nacho Novo

 

Comments

Leave a Reply




Copyright © The Final Thought 2008 All Rights Reserved.