Mighty Rangers the kings of Lyon

MAGNIFICENT Rangers recorded arguably the best European result in their history by thrashing French giants Lyon in their own back yard.

Walter Smith’s side took a giant step towards qualifying for the tournament’s knockout stages with last night’s stunning win, and now have two wins out of two following their opening-day success against Stuttgart.

Lee McCulloch opened the scoring in the 23rd minute with a powerful header from DaMarcus Beasley’s corner, and there was better to come in the second half.

Daniel Cousin made it 2-0 with a drilled finish just after the break — and the striker set up Beasley for the third goal with a superb crossfield ball.

A jubilant McCulloch was delighted to find the net in his first appearance in the Champions League.

“The most important thing is the result. It’s another three points and we’ll see where it takes us,” he said.

Next up for Walter Smith’s team is a home match against Barcelona on October 23 — both teams have six points from their first two games.

And McCulloch continued: “It won’t be easy — but if we show the grit and determination we showed tonight, we won’t be too far away.

“Our character and team spirit shines through — we’ve got belief in the dressing room we can give everyone a game.

“We’ve got Barcelona at home first and that will be a good game.

“As long as we keep going we can only get better.”

Smith said: “We have showed we can compete at this level in two games but we’ve got to take it to the next level against Barca — it’ll be an extremely tough task.”

Meanwhile the French side, who lost their opener against Barcelona 3-0, are already close to elimination after just two games.

They hit the woodwork three times — twice through Juninho — but it was not their night, and they lacked the creativity to seriously threaten a Rangers rearguard superbly marshalled by Carlos Cuellar and David Weir.

It was against the run of play that Rangers notched their first goal.

Right-back Alan Hutton forced a corner out of Kim Kallstrom and from the resulting set-piece, taken by Beasley, McCulloch found space to head home from the penalty spot.

The goal stunned the majority of the Stade Gerland crowd and Juninho took it upon himself to find the equaliser.

His first free-kick of the night went narrowly over, and his next, moments later, was palmed out by McGregor — with Sebastien Squillaci prodding the rebound weakly wide.

The dead-ball doyen came closer on the stroke of half-time, his curling free-kick from 20 yards hitting the bar and rebounding out.

Rangers were celebrating a 2-0 lead three minutes after the restart.

Cousin, signed from Lyon’s Ligue 1 rivals Lens in the summer, received the ball just inside the area to the right of goal, turned his marker and crashed a powerful effort in at Remy Vercoutre’s near post from 10 yards.

The army of Rangers fans, who made up a significant portion of the 38,076 crowd, were jubilant — and they had further reason to cheer two minutes later.

Cousin, with a superb 40-yard ball, found Beasley charging through the middle in space — and the American controlled before calmly finishing.

On the 70-minute mark, Juninho hit the woodwork for a second time — crashing a low, left-foot effort against McGregor’s post, while Kallstrom and Sidney Govou flashed shots wide.

A miserable night for the hosts was completed in the 84th minute when Anderson headed against the woodwork — the third time Lyon had done so in the game — signifying it was definitely not their night.