Rangers crash out, McInnes mortified

The collapse

Derek McInnes's side travelled to Czechia needing only to avoid defeat, and they could not do it. A 1-0 loss in the second leg levelled the tie on aggregate, and Jablonec then won 4-3 in the penalty shootout to complete the exit. It is the second consecutive season Rangers have failed to reach a European group phase. McInnes, speaking afterwards, used the word 'mortified'. He didn't reach for anything softer.

The first leg at Ibrox had given Rangers exactly the platform they needed: a narrow lead, home advantage banked, a side from the Czech top flight to navigate. What followed in Czechia was, according to The Guardian, a poor performance that left the manager with nothing to defend.

The contrast nobody needed

Elsewhere in the same playoff round, Brighton were doing the opposite. Fabian Hürzeler's side put four past Norwegian outfit Tromsø without reply, cruising into the Conference League league phase with the kind of performance that makes adjacent results look worse by proximity. For Rangers fans watching the scorelines come in, it was not a comfortable evening.

What comes next

McInnes is under immediate scrutiny. Squandering a first-leg advantage to fall at the playoff stage of a third-tier European competition is the kind of result that shortens timelines in dugouts. Rangers will return to domestic business in the Scottish Premiership with a European campaign that lasted precisely two rounds.