Rangers appear to have dropped a ‘demand’ made to a previous opponent, ahead of their Last 16 second-leg clash with Slavia Prague.
Last month, when Royal Antwerp came to Glasgow for the Round of 32 second-leg, they trained at Auchenhowie the day before the match.
A tweet to a Rangers fan from the Belgian’s club’s official account suggested that they had independently decided not to train at Ibrox, but their manager, Franky Vercauteren, later explained that although he wasn’t against the move, Rangers had left them with little choice in the matter.
“It was a demand of Rangers,” he said [Daily Record]. “I’m a football fan, so I want to protect the field to play the game. We don’t want to demolish the field with respect to the opponent and ourselves.”
“We want to play in the best conditions. That’s why we are here [Auchenhowie]. When you are a professional team, you have to understand the demands of the other team. We would not want another team to kill our field.
“That’s why we are training here instead. Training the day before the game is not so important.”
Ahead of Thursday night’s match against Slavia, though, it seems Rangers are less concerned about the pitch and therefore, haven’t issued similar instructions this time around.
That’s because the Czech club checked in at Ibrox on Wednesday afternoon, before stating that they planned to train on the pitch at 7pm CET (6pm GMT).
In theory, training at Ibrox will give Slavia an advantage that Antwerp weren’t afforded as they will have a chance to get used to the playing surface and to get a feel for the stadium prior to matchday.
Rangers fans will be hoping, though, that regardless of the Czech side’s preparations, their team will have enough to progress, with Steven Gerrard eyeing a spot in the quarter-finals for the first time as a manager.
Should the Gers make it through, they will receive a substantial cash reward from UEFA.
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