TREVOR STEVEN finds the irony bitter and biting that Rangers are preparing to face their old European foes Olympique Marseille on Saturday just 18 days after the worst result in their history.

In the heady days of 1993, Rangers faced the French side in what was effectively a Champions League semi-final which, given the recent predicament of the club, seems like some kind of dream.

Rangers were on the cusp of greatness at the highest level of the game which only exemplifies the state they currently find themselves in as Pedro Caixinha scrambles to recover and have his team ready for the new season after the nightmare of Niederkorn.

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Steven had been sold to Marseille in August 1991 for a then British record of £5.5 million and helped them win Ligue 1 playing beside Chris Waddle, Jean-Pierre Papin, Marcel Desailly and Didier Deschamps.

He returned a year later when Marseille had trouble completing the transfer payments and Rangers were drawn in the same Champions League group having knocked out English champ-ions Leeds United to qualify.

A victory in the Velodrome on April 7, 1993 would have taken Rangers to the first Champions League final against AC Milan. They valiantly drew 1-1 with Ian Durrant brilliantly equalising Franck Sauzee’s strike but ultimately came up short by one point.

Marseille went on to win the final with future Ranger Basile Boli scoring the only goal but the victory was tainted when domestic match-fixing was uncovered and owner Bernard Tapie was jailed.

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Steven said: “It’s ironic that Rangers are playing Marseille, their great foes from 1993, when they have been humiliated in Europe.

“How on earth they didn’t get past them [Niederkorn] I’ll never know. You’ve just got to win these games and move on to the next round.

“It was clearly a huge blow to everyone at the club and I feel for the players because the pressure of playing for Rangers is huge anyway and to have a result like that, they will need strong characters to recover.

“The games in 1993 must seem like a long time ago for the supporters.

“It was a whirlwind move for me in 1991 as one minute I was scoring against Motherwell in a 2-0 win and two days later I was in the Nou Camp playing against Michael Laud-rup and Ronald Koeman in a pre-season tournament.

“It was everything I thought it was going to be because they were at the 
centre of everything that was happening in European football at the time.

“We didn’t just have to win, we had to win with style. It was going well – I scored three goals in nine games – but then we went out of the European Cup to Sparta Prague in the second round and it was a 
financial disaster.

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“A lot of us were not getting paid what we were supposed to but we all played on and we won the league despite the financial problems.

“However, after a year I was back at Rangers and, of course, we were drawn with Marseille in the Group Stage of the Champions League.

“We played very well that night and we could have won.

“What made it worse was the revelation of match-fixing in the French league that season. Marseille were punished for that and we all felt that some things were going on in that European campaign.

“There is little doubt Marseille’s Champions League win in 1993 is clouded in questions.”