Christian Burgess doesn’t take it personally.
Only a couple of years ago he had absolutely no idea who Union Saint-Gilloise were either. So the former Portsmouth stopper can hardly play the offended card if there were Rangers fans out there punching the air in delight when the Belgian minnows were paired with their team in this season’s Champions League qualifiers.
Yes, Union may have come close to pulling off one of European football’s greatest-ever fairytales last season when they came back from 48 years in lower league obscurity to come within a play-off run of the Belgian title. But with Gio Van Bronckhorst busy heading to a Europa League final in Seville at the time and Celtic clinching the Scottish Premiership, very few fans in this country even had time or the inclination to look up and take notice.
“It’s like the English isn’t it? We’re the same,” smiles Burgess when it’s put to him that Union’s heroic efforts might have gone largely unnoticed in Rangers’ backyard. I must be honest, I hadn’t even heard of Union before they reached out to me a couple of years ago so it’s pretty normal if the Rangers fans don’t know much about us.
“They’ll know about the bigger clubs in Belgium but we’re pretty small in comparison to the likes of Brugge and Anderlecht. We do have our own history but all of it was created more than a century ago!”
In fact, Union’s 11 top-flight titles makes them the third most successful Belgian side of all time behind Brugge and Anderlecht. That they were all won between the years of 1904 and 1935 is merely a minor detail in the remarkable phoenix-from-the-ashes rise which has been developing in the leafy suburb of Brussels over these last 24 months.
Burgess picks up the story: “Around 10 years ago Union were in the third division which is actually the first amateur division. It’s not even professional. They got back into the second division and obviously last year we got promoted and played in the first division for the first time in nearly 50 years.
“So this is a tie between two teams with a lot of history. Obviously Rangers are huge – way, way bigger than us – but there is a lot of history on both sides which is nice.”
A business link up with the owners of Brighton triggered an ambitous rebirth, with the likes of Burgess being recruited to help drive the club back into the modern day.
And now here they are. League runners up at the first attempt and two ties away from a Champions League bow which would make the whole of Europe sit up and take notice.
Just as it did last season when Rangers completed their own against-all-odds climb to the summit of continental competition, 10 years after a wholescale collapse of its own.
Burgess was among the onlookers as van Bronckhorst and his players ripped through the Europa League to make it all the way to Seville.
And now his team-mates are swatting up on it too as they prepare for the biggest double header of their lives.
Burgess goes on: “We’re all excited at the thought of playing at Ibrox. The day after the draw was made one of the boys came into training and showed us YouTube clips of what the atmosphere was like during last season’s European campaign. It looked out of this world.
“So it’s going to be an incredible experience for us, either way. We’re just looking forward to it. The pressure won’t be on us, if we’re honest. We’re not expected to win.
“With that crowd behind Rangers we almost have sort of a free hit. But we’re all excited and especially myself. I’ve already had family and friends telling me they’ve booked planes and trains to get to Glasgow.
“I’m just waiting on information about tickets because it looks like I’m going to have to buy quite a few!”
That second leg will be quite a change of scenery for Burgess and his team-mates who play their home games in a rickety old throwback of a ground built on the edge of a forest.
So antiquated is the Joseph Marien Stadium that Union have had to move the tie to a modern purpose-built stadium in Leuven, some 40 minute drive away.
Burgess says: “It’s such a shame we won’t be playing at our home stadium because it’s like this ancient relic in the middle of a park with a forest in the background. It’s gorgeous – like taking a step back in time – especially under the lights.”
And yet, in spite of everything – after stop-offs at Bishop’s Stortford, Middlebrough, Hartlepool, Peterborough and Pompey – Burgess is on the brink of the Champions League.
He goes on: “It’s possible and we certainly hope so. If we knock Rangers out it would be absolutely huge. It’s what we’re dreaming of.
“But at the same time we’ve had a tough summer. We had an incredible season last year but we’re slacking a little bit – we’ve probably lost four of our best players. We still see Rangers as favourites, of course, but I think we like it that way. We were always the underdogs last year.”
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