Rangers Europa League defeat at the hands of Benfica was one that was met more with frustration and understanding rather than seethe or disappointment.
There was a common theme amongst the 50,000 souls who departed Ibrox into the Glasgow down pour and that there was a sense of pride in the efforts made by players in a squad that is heavily hit by injury.
They gave it their all but, ultimately, ran out of steam, however, Rangers being dumped out of the Europa League is a good thing, not a bad.
Rangers exit to Benfica a blessing in disguise
Had Rangers made it past the Portuguese giants, a welcome bonus of £1.8m in prize money would have been received as well as another couple of million made from selling out a packed home ground.
Gers boss Philippe Clement might claim to want to win everything but he is also a realist.
Take Thursday night as an example.
He started with Scott Wright and had Rabbi Matondo and Ross McCausland on the bench knowing that the latter had struggled in training.
The reason why he was on the bench was in case the game went into extra-time because Clement knew that Matondo had little more than half an hour in his legs.
This is the story throughout the squad.
Tom Lawrence missed pre-season and has to be looked after but Todd Cantwell has only just returned to training.
Mohamed Diomande is having to play every game having arrived from halfway through Nordsjaelland’s pre-season training, if Nicolas Raskin was 100% or Ryan Jack was available, this wouldn’t be the case.
Now, add another couple of games against a team like Liverpool or Bayer Leverkusen or Milan into the fixture list.
That wouldn’t help our preparations in a title race that is going to the wire.
Over the two games, Rangers showed that they can compete with a good team who have spent a lot of money in recent years but, there is a time and a place.
In 2008 and 2022, there is no doubt that we ran out of steam domestically due to our European exertions.
Reaching European finals is a huge achievement, and you can never pick or choose when you do that, this year though, there are other priorities.
