Club Brugge 6-0 Rangers result – Russell Martin’s 10-man Gers suffer record-equalling defeat to crash out of Champions League

Ten-man Rangers were denied a spot in the UEFA Champions League in emphatic fashion as Russell Martin’s side suffered one of the worst results in the club’s history, losing 6-0 on the night against Club Brugge and 9-1 on aggregate.

The visitors needed something special after a 3-1 defeat at Ibrox in the first leg, but their chances of a famous comeback disappeared inside the first 10 minutes in Bruges as Nicolo Tresoldi scored a fifth-minute opener before Max Aarons hauled back Christos Tzolis as the last man to earn a straight red just three minutes later.

The rest of the match was one-way traffic as Brugge put in a scintillating display, carving Rangers apart time and again.

Four more goals came before the break, with Hans Vanaken and Aleksandar Stankovic providing outstanding finishes either side of a back-post brace from Joaquin Seys.

The excellent Tzolis added a sixth after the interval to complete the rout, with the hosts taking off all of their star performers with plenty of time left on the clock.

The only positive on the night for Rangers was that a sympathetic referee played zero minutes of added time to put them out of their misery at the earliest possible opportunity, and the 6-0 defeat equals their previous biggest margin of defeat in European football – against Real Madrid in 1963 and Liverpool in 2022.

Rangers now drop into the Europa League, and they will discover their league phase opponents in Friday’s draw. Next up on the pitch, it’s the small matter of an Old Firm derby at Ibrox on Sunday.

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Ally McCoist, who was on commentary for TNT Sports this evening, pulled no punches with his assessment of that performance from Rangers:

"That was unacceptable. But what those travelling fans and everyone watching back home expects is a level of competitiveness that they didn’t see tonight.

"Rangers supporters deserve a lot better than the level of commitment, organisation, willingness to defend, that they saw tonight.

"In many ways, I’m thinking to myself, if they had gone through, then God help us. If you’re going to places like Anfield and the Bernabeu and places like that, that would have been too much to take.

It is Club Brugge who will be in the hat when the draw for the league phase of the UEFA Champions League gets underway at 17:00 BST tomorrow. You can follow that live on the TNT Sports website, and you can also follow the Europa League draw, when Rangers will feature, at midday on Friday.

In fact, make sure to check out the TNT Sports website for live sports news throughout the week. Our expert team of cross-sport writers and editors are all over the best of the breaking news and the big talking points, with new stories coming out 18 hours a day, seven days a week.

A night that started with Rangers hoping for a historic comeback has indeed ended with history being written, but with Club Brugge consigning the Scottish club to the joint-heaviest European defeat in their history. The result means that there will be no Scottish Premiership representative in the top tier of European club football this season, but concerns for Rangers will be far bigger than that after a performance that will be incredibly hard to bounce back from for a beleaguered squad and an under-fire manager.

The final whistle is sounded the second the clock reaches 90 as the referee puts Rangers out of their misery. The home crowd stand to applaud a masterful performance from Club Brugge, who progress to the Champions League proper in style. It finishes 6-0 on the night and 9-1 on aggregate.

The two managers embrace down on the touchline as the game ticks towards its conclusion.

Nilsson thinks his team should have a corner, and he’s right, they should have had a corner, but his protests cross a line in the opinion of the referee and he is booked.

The home fans are jubilant and their team are strolling around, safe in the knowledge that their place in the pot for the Champions League draw tomorrow is secure.

Diakhon makes mincemeat of the Rangers defence with a terrific run down the flank and whips in a cross, but Nilsson is on his heels and fails to finish another excellent opportunity. Click on to those match stats to see just how one-sided this game has been.

The defending from Rangers is so bad as a cross is allowed to come in from the Brugge right flank and makes its way all the way through to substitute Furo, who miscues his first-time effort. "He should have done better with that," says a forlorn Ally McCoist on commentary.

We’re into the final 20 minutes of Scottish representation in the Champions League this season. Rangers will be joining Celtic in dropping into the Europa League, but on tonight’s evidence it’s probably just as well they won’t be facing Europe’s biggest clubs (at least from a footballing point of view rather than a financial one). If Club Brugge can rip the Rangers defence up like this, then what would Barcelona do?!

Stankovic sure can hit them and he unleashes a monstrous drive from distance that Butland palms away. That would have stung the palms.

Furo comes on for another of the goalscorers, Tresoldi, as the home side take the opportunity to rest their star players with the win very much in the bag.

The Rangers substitutes are warming up while we have a stoppage in play. It’s Cameron who’s down and receiving treatment, but it looks like he may be able to continue.

The towering substitute Nilsson meets the ball at the back post, but he’s under a bit of pressure from the defender and can’t get much power on his header, with Butland making the save.

Two stars of the night are given a rest by the home side, with Seys and Tzolis given a standing ovation as they make way. Both of them have been superb this evening.

It’s been one-way traffic for so long tonight that it’s a bit of a shock to see a chance for Rangers, with Danilo picking the ball up on the edge of the box and attempting a speculative over-head effort.

It really should be a seventh as Vanaken opts not to shoot on three separate occasions in space in the box. It is so, so easy for Club Brugge, who are opening up the Rangers defence at will.

That is a glorious goal and the terrible night continues for Rangers as attention begins to turn to the record-books. A sublime back-heel from Tresoldi plays Tzolis in, and the impressive Greek forward finishes the move with a lovely finish that nestles right in the far bottom corner. It’s 9-1 on aggregate.