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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
David Irvine

Beale Champions League regret theory floated by Rangers hero

Neil McCann reckons hindsight might leave Michael Beale regretting the decision not to watch Servette in person.

The Rangers boss chose to stay in Glasgow to welcome Jose Cifuentes to the club over a trip to scout Champions League third qualifying round opponents Servette.

Beale was due to travel to Brussels to watch the match between Genk and Servette in the previous round of the competition.

But, instead, he chose to welcome Cifuentes to Ibrox after sealing a transfer move for the LAFC midfielder.

Beale had thought the decision proved the right one when Servette were reduced to ten men quickly in the match deeming the scouting less important than if they had played with a full compliment throughout the eventual shoot-out win.

Now, though, McCann reckons, after seeing Servette reduced to ten men at Ibrox in the 2-1 first leg win for Rangers, Beale might have wished he went to Brussels.

David Douline was sent off for the visitors after an hour at Ibrox.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland, he said: "We will get to the players but the last game, Servette went down to 10 men.

"The question was asked of Michael Beale, he was going to go and watch that game and he chose to meet Cifuentes.

"He thought that would have been a wasted journey because they went down to 10 men.

"Well, in hindsight, it wouldn't have been. You would have been able to see them in the flesh and what they did with 10 men.

"They [Rangers] won the game tonight and that is really important."

Discussing the scrapped scouting mission, Beale said previously: "I was due to go to Brussels last Wednesday for the Servette game but chose not to because Jose was arriving and I wanted to be here.

"I was glad I didn't go because the sending-off after two minutes, there is not too much you can take from that game. We will go back to the first match.

"Servette put in a fantastic performance. Fair play to them to show that level of resilience because Genk are a very good team.

"It tells you that if they are able to play with ten men for the amount of time that they did, and get a result, then they have got something about them.

"At this level of European competition we have to be at our very best. I'm just trying to focus on one game at a time.

"Servette played again at the weekend against a team from Lausanne, so we will get to watch them again."

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