PARIS: Rangers gained a narrow advantage in their Cham­pions League opener on Wednesday as the Scottish side returned to Europe where last season they suffered six humbling defeats.

Rangers edged out Servette of Switzerland 2-1 in the first leg of their final qualifying round tie at Ibrox.

The Swiss may be slight favourites to progress to the play-off round when the two sides clash in the second leg next Tuesday, but at least Rangers went some way to erasing the pain of their last continental adventure.

After reaching the 2022/23 group stage after a 12-year absence, they slumped to defeats, home and away, to Liverpool, Napoli and Ajax.

Having lost their Scottish Pre­m­iership season opener 1-0 to unheralded Kilmarnock at the wee­kend, they were 2-0 up on Servette inside 15 minutes on Tuesday.

Captain James Tavernier sco­r­ed a penalty in the sixth minute before striker Cyriel Dessers knocked in a second eight minutes later for his first Rangers goal.

Just before half-time, however, Servette striker Chris Bedia reduced the deficit from the penalty spot after VAR intervened to flag up a Dessers handball.

Servette’s David Douline, who conceded the penalty for a foul on Todd Cantwell, was sent off in the 59th minute for picking up the second of two yellow cards.

“We’ll have to take the win and put in a good performance next week. We were always going to have to do that,” Rangers boss Michael Beale told the BBC.

In the night other fixture, Marseille slipped to a 1-0 defeat at Panathinaikos, thirty years after they were crowned Europ­ean champions for the first and only time.

Brazilian Bernard scored the winner in the 83rd minute from a pass by Ioannis Papadimitrou.

“We haven’t played many European matches but this is undoubtedly the most successful,” said Panathinaikos coach Ivan Jovanovic. “Overall, for this time of year, it was a very good game and I’m satisfied.”

The French side had been reduced to 10 men following a 65th-minute red card for Geof­frey Kondogbia, one of three summer signings on show on Wednesday along with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Ismaila Sarr.The night’s other tie saw Maccabi Haifa of Israel come away from Slovan Bratislava in Slovakia with a 2-1 win.

All three goals came inside the first 15 minutes with Diaa Sabia grabbing the winner after Haitian international Frantzdy Pierrot’s fifth-minute opener for the Israeli side had been cancelled out by Juraj Kucka.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2023