In the first leg of the Champions League play-offs, Eindhoven’s Sangaré was the star performer, making one mistake and scoring once. But de Jong equalised again when Rangers took the lead again.
Just like last year, Glasgow Rangers and PSV Eindhoven met again in the Champions League play-offs. On that occasion, the Scots had advanced to the top flight after a 2-2 draw at home and a 1-0 win in the Netherlands.
All been there before
Completing the parallelism of events, the first leg not only took place again at the Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow, but again ended 2-2. In a somewhat uneventful first half, PSV were the more active team, but rarely found a way through the disciplined defence of the Scots. Rangers, on the other hand, only looked to go forward sporadically, but gratefully accepted a gift from Sangaré just before the break.
The defensive midfielder lost the ball in his own penalty area to Raskin and Dessers, and Sima placed it superbly into the top right corner for a 1-0 lead at the break (45th).
Sangaré makes up for slip-up
After Tavernier narrowly missed the delayed double strike shortly after the restart (46th), Sangaré made up for his mistake and equalised after a fine move (61st).
The second half was much the same as the first: PSV, with Tillman on the bench for 90 minutes against his former club, tried to put on pressure, but at first there were only a few corners. Most of the time there was still a leg of the hosts in between – who then switched quickly after winning the ball. In minute 76, Dessers released Matondo, who had been substituted shortly before. The ex-Schalker scored ice-cold to make it 2:1. The lead did not last long, however, as de Jong headed a Bakayoko corner into the far corner with his left shoulder to equalise again (80th).
In the final phase, Rangers showed their best phase and could have decided the game through the substitute ex-Frankfurter Lammers, Danilo (both 88th) or Matondo’s long-range shot (90.+4).
In the end, it remained 2-2 – and so, like last year, the second leg will bring the final decision. This will take place in Eindhoven on Wednesday in one week’s time.
