Penalties in Czechia. Knocked out by Jablonec. August. This is where Rangers are right now, and there's no dressing it up.
Derek McInnes's side travelled to Stadion Strelnice holding a 1-0 lead from the first leg at Ibrox, which is precisely the kind of position you need to produce something — anything — in away from home. Instead, they were turgid, toothless, and ultimately punished for it. A 1-0 defeat on the night meant 1-1 on aggregate, extra time, and then a 4-3 shootout loss that ended their Conference League campaign before September has even arrived.
A Performance That Deserved to Lose
McInnes threw on Lawrence Shankland, Connor Barron, and Findlay Curtis in the second half, but the changes couldn't shift the momentum. Jablonec's Vakhtang Chanturishvili did what Rangers couldn't — produced a decisive moment, a low drive in the 73rd minute that beat keeper Ivor Pandur and levelled the tie.
In the shootout, Pandur did his bit, saving from Filip Zorvan. But Curtis blazed his penalty over the bar, and James Penrice was denied by Jan Hanus. Jan Chramosta stepped up and buried the decisive kick. Done.
McInnes wasn't hiding afterwards, and fair play to him for that much. "I'm embarrassed with the performance," he said. "It wasn't a good performance at any stretch of the imagination. I'm not going to sit here and make any excuses whatsoever." He went further: "I thought the opposition were better than us in most aspects of the game so we got what we deserved." And then the line that says everything — "I'm mortified by the performance."
When a manager uses the word mortified, you know the room was bad. He even acknowledged that a penalty win would have "covered over the cracks." That's a manager telling you, straight, that the result would have been flattering regardless of outcome.
The Bigger Picture Is Bleak
This isn't an isolated off-night. Rangers were already knocked out of the Europa League qualifiers by Polish side Jagiellonia Bialystok, going out 3-2 on aggregate. That means two European exits before most clubs have even kicked a ball competitively. The club's rebuild under McInnes — billed as a significant overhaul — is struggling to find its legs, and now there's no European football to paper over the domestic cracks. Their continent is done for the season.
Contrast that with [Hearts, who dug in against Rapid Vienna in extraordinary circumstances to reach the Conference League](/getohedz/football/ten-man-hearts-stun-rapid-vienna-in-shootout-to-reach-conference), and the gulf in Scottish football's European fortunes this week is stark.
Meanwhile, Brighton had zero such problems. Fabian Hürzeler's side dismantled Tromsø 4-0 at the Amex — goals from Charalampos Kostoulas, Maxim De Cuyper, Mats Wieffer, and a late deflected effort from Olivier Boscagli — to stroll into the Conference League's league phase after a goalless first leg in Norway. Ruthless where it mattered.
Our Take
Rangers lost to a Czech side they were favoured to beat, put in a performance their own manager called embarrassing, and are now out of Europe in August for the second time in a row in qualifying. McInnes has credit in the bank from his track record, but that bank isn't infinite. The rebuild needs results, and right now it's producing the opposite.