New European adventures can spark Rangers back into life

BEALE RELISHED ALL CONTINENTAL CLASHES UNDER WING OF GERRARD... NOW HE EYES GLORY NIGHTS OF HIS OWN

IPlaying in the Champions League was our dream. But we messed it up

T’S September 2018 and the eve of Rangers’ first Europa League group-stage match under Steven Gerrard. Training is underway on a warm night at Villarreal’s El Madrigal Stadium and, although Gerrard is helping drive the crispness and tempo of a passing drill, he does so not as orchestrator of the session but as a participant.

At the head of the group stands Michael Beale, unremarkable in appearance yet clearly the commanding voice on the field.

Instructions are barked loudly and clearly and the team responds; eager to impress their new boss for sure, but also obedient to the demands of his first-team coach.

A little while later, Beale arrives inside a small kit room off the tunnel area and, as is his way, proceeds to talk non-stop for the best part of an hour. The resulting Mail on Sunday feature serves as an introduction to the man who was last week announced as the 18th permanent manager of Rangers.

Rangers would go out and claim a 2-2 draw the following night, a result referenced by Beale as he sat down in the Ibrox Blue Room to lay out his

priorities on his return to the club last week. Gerrard had been appointed with a remit of reining in Celtic, at that stage under the management of Brendan Rodgers and sitting on seven consecutive Premiership titles.

Yet although the club’s support, and indeed its board of directors, were consumed by the imperative of stopping their great rivals bettering the clubs’ shared record of nine in a row, Gerrard and Beale placed a firm emphasis on Europe — not just as way of generating the income needed to mount a strong domestic challenge but of evolving and improving a playing style.

That strategy was in evidence from the very start. In contrast to the embarrassment of exiting to Luxembourg’s Progres Niederkorn under Pedro Caixinha a year earlier, Rangers negotiated four rounds of qualifiers to set up that Europa League group with Villarreal, Rapid Vienna and Spartak Moscow.

There were more adventures to follow. Feyenoord, Young Boys and Porto awaited in the following season’s group stage and there were also knock-out stage nights against Braga and Bayer Leverkusen.

Domestically, Gerrard’s team could be flaky but the performances against Celtic steadily and markedly improved over the first two years, culminating in dominance of the fixture in year three.

Gerrard’s legacy will always be the delivery of that vital title success in 2021 but Beale maintains that it was the continent which provided the bedrock of their success.

‘The 50-plus games we played in Europe before we left made the team grow in belief,’ he says. ‘Nights like getting that good result away at Villarreal, beating Porto and Feyenoord, even a small defeat at Spartak Moscow, it all made the players believe in themselves.

‘You take your eyes off your biggest rivals domestically and focus on an even bigger level of football — that only helps you come back and play at a higher level.’

Just months after Rangers’ title win, Beale joined former England and Liverpool captain Gerrard in quitting Ibrox for Aston Villa.

Yet there was always a sense of unfinished business surrounding this self-proclaimed career coach, not least because Gerrard had never sought to play down his influence on his team.

The 42-year-old was never formally offered the chance to stay in Glasgow but his itch to branch out on his own became unbearable and after a few months he was managing Queens Park Rangers in the EFL Championship.

Another sitdown with this newspaper in July provided the firm declaration that he did indeed wish to return to manage Rangers, a revelation that made his decision to reject Wolves easier to understand.

Giovanni van Bronckhorst had taken up the mantle from Gerrard midway through last term’s Europa League campaign and the Dutchman’s game management carried took team to the Seville final.

Yet domestically van Bronckhorst had ceded ground to Celtic, a six-point advantage at the time of Gerrard’s exit ending in the loss of the title. Qualification for the Champions League may have offered hope of rejuvenation this season but a series of Champions League drubbings followed at the hands of Ajax, Napoli and Liverpool.

‘It was great to have two teams in the Champions League,’ Beale says. ‘It was hugely important for Scottish football in terms of the exposure and finance.

‘The women’s league in England gives out more money for winning the league than the Scottish Premiership, so the only way for the game to grow is European football.

‘Hearts had group-stage football as well which is huge for the growth of the clubs and the game.

‘But the reward for Rangers and those years of getting back was the Group of Death.’

The European exit did nothing to help Van Bronckhorst’s case for staying in his job but Beale refuses to throw shade on the Dutchman for that, especially as he managed to defeat PSV Eindhoven to reach the group stage — something he and Gerrard failed to do when they met Malmo last year.

‘I was involved when we threw a game away at Ibrox and it was the lowest we felt,’ he admitted. ‘Because it was our dream. Win the league, play in the Champions League But we messed it up.’

Celtic amassed only two points from a section including Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk and RB Leipzig, the team van Bronckhorst’s side beat in the Europa League semi-finals last term.

Yet Ange Postecoglou’s team gained plaudits for an aggressive approach that saw them create a number of chances in each game.

Beale admires the job the Australian has done at Parkhead but offers a barbed verdict of how the clubs’ respective Champions League campaigns have been perceived.

‘Domestically, I think where we are now is really disappointing compared to where we were a year ago,’ continues Beale. ‘On the European side, we’ve outperformed them (Celtic) because we reached a European final and didn’t we both bomb out of Europe?

‘I didn’t think one was much better than the other. The perception maybe because of the interviews given by the respective coaches after the games. Maybe one was a bit more honest and the other was staying on the positive.

‘If we could have maybe been a bit more optimistic in our approach, we might have been in the same place.

‘I think not all is broken around here. I’ve just got to get to work.’

Nine points behind in the Premiership title race, Beale has a tough job to take on Celtic this season but reasons that when the club’s injury list eases, he will be able to make gains.

Familiar with the club, the squad and eager return his family to a life they loved in the countryside north of Glasgow, Beale will have no problems settling back in.

Yet he will have to deal with existential change.

At QPR, he was head coach. Being Rangers boss requires a broader skill-set — not least the ability to know when to take a step back.

Gerrard mastered that from the off, not just because he had Beale running the day-to-day sessions, but also by turning to assistant Gary McAllister’s calming presence.

Beale has brought coaches Neil Banfield, Damian Matthew and Harry Watling in alongside a new head of performance in Jack Ade.

He has already stated that he has no intention of diluting his training ground presence, reasoning that it would be foolish to step back when coaching is his main skill-set.

Yet as the pressures push in from every angle, be it the support, media or boardroom, Beale will benefit from learning to delegate.

Those who fear he is too raw to manage Rangers underestimate his influence under Gerrard.

Instrumental in recruitment, not least the signings of players like Ryan Kent and Glen Kamara, he was also vocal in opposing a selfdefeating media strategy that has been abandoned following the departure of head of communications David Graham.

His enduring relationship with sporting director Ross Wilson will be key in conducting the January business that will provide the first steps in upgrading the squad.

‘Under Steven, we knew we didn’t have £5m or £10m to spend on a player,’ he continues. ‘A lot of our best signings cost nothing like Kamara, (Joe) Aribo and (Calvin) Bassey. They took time to become elite players but it didn’t cost a lot.

‘The vision we had for the way we play drove the decision. When the team is playing a certain way and the fans are happy, it’s nice. A lot of players want to come here, a lot of agents ring you. Under Steven, a lot of players wanted to come here but we couldn’t finance it. That’s where we are in the money chain.’

While supporters can probably hang their hat on Kamara returning to prominence after an unhappy time under Van Bronckhorst, it will be fascinating to see how one or two others fare with the regime change.

Alfredo Morelos has endured a hot and cold relationship with successive coaching staff at Ibrox, not to mention his team-mates.

Out of contract next summer, the Colombian will be required to display commitment or he could be cut loose next month.

‘There will be money available to recruit in January and I’ll be keen to do it if I don’t get the right vibe off one or two players in the squad,’ says Beale pointedly. ‘I have to know they’re still the boy that we recruited to come in. Because if they don’t want to be here, I don’t want them. And I don’t think the club do either.

‘Have I got targets already? One or two but more positional.

‘What do I want from the quality of those players? The cross-border market has been really important to us with Bassey and Aribo.

‘We’ve won a league, played in the Champions League, won a Scottish Cup and played in a Europa Final.

‘So let’s look forward positively. People think it’s broken again, but I don’t believe that at all.’