Go and make yourselves legends, Smith tells Gers

WALTER SMITH has issued an eve-of-match rallying call for his players to make themselves legends by bringing the UEFA Cup back to Glasgow.

The Ibrox club take on Zenit St Petersburg in the final at the City of Manchester Stadium tonight.

Rangers remain on course for a quadruple, with the UEFA Cup now arguably the most attractive of the trophies still up for grabs.

Smith freely admits to being surprised by his side’s enduring continental campaign but having overcome Panathinaikos, Werder Bremen, Sporting Lisbon and Fiorentina to reach their first European final in 36 years the Rangers boss is looking for one last push from his players.

“Once you reach the quarter-final stage, you start to think about the final and realise just how much it means to everyone,” he said.

“It starts to take over everything else and it has done for the last few days. We had a difficult weekend and had to concentrate on that match but now that we are here we will try to win this trophy.

“The European competition isn’t one that we thought we would get this far in so it’s a nice surprise for us and hopefully we will do well and win it.

“Zenit have also had a terrific season so it will be a very difficult game.”

Rangers have been criticised for their cautious approach in both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup this season and required a tense penalty shoot-out to overcome Fiorentina in the last four after 210 minutes of football over the two legs ended goalless.

But Smith insisted: “When you get to the final, it’s just the circumstances of the game and how well you play in the game whether you win or lose. You can never tell how a final will go.’’

In contrast, Zenit overcame Bayern Munich in their semi-final with an emphatic 5-1 aggregate victory and, as far as Smith is concerned, that means Dick Advocaat’s men are favourites to claim the trophy.

“It’s difficult to try to assess a team until you have to play them,” he said.

“But you only have to look at the semi-finals. The 1-1 draw in Munich was a terrific result for them and to win 4-0 at home was an exceptional result and probably one of the best results in all the European competitions this year.

“That’s the measure of Zenit and how highly I regard them. It will be a very, very tough night for us.”

Meanwhile Zenit St Petersburg manager Dick Advocaat insists there will be no racist behaviour from the Russian supporters in tomorrow’s UEFA Cup final against Rangers at the City of Manchester Stadium.

Zenit’s fans were accused of abusing Marseille’s black players earlier in the competition and Advocaat, who was manager of the Ibrox club between 1998 and 2001, was quoted as saying he could not sign black players for the St Petersburg club due to racism among his supporters.

UK Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe claimed a zero-tolerance approach to the final would mean any racial abuse from any of the 9,000 Zenit fans towards Rangers’ black players such as Jean-Claude Darcheville and Amdy Faye could see them end up in prison, and Advocaat assured Sutcliffe that he had nothing to worry about from the Russian supporters.

Reminded that he had allegedly said that he could not sign black players, the former Holland manager retorted: “I didn’t say that!

“There will be no problem at all.

“It has become an issue and I don’t know why. It is not an issue at Zenit and there are black players in Russia.

“He (Sutcliffe) must have other concerns other than football.

“This about a football match, not about colour.”