It’s quarter final time in three European competitions, and whilst the first leg of the Champions League has been the focus for the last two evenings, tonight the Europa League and Conference League split the attention. Of course, from a Scottish perspective, it’s only the Europa League that matters with Rangers the sole representative left in Europe.

The first leg of their quarter final sees Athletic Bilbao visit Ibrox in an 8pm kick off. For those who won’t be there, the game is live on TNT Sports 2.

Unsurprisingly, this isn’t the first time a team representing Spain has visited Ibrox. And yes, I’m intentionally not calling them a Spanish side! I mean, this is a side who have a policy of only developing or even signing players that are Basque after all. But I’m not here to debate the merits of such policies.

So, getting back to the football, Athletic Bilbao will be particularly keen to go all the way in this tournament. After all, the Europa League final this season is set to be played in their own stadium, the San Mamés. So Rangers will definitely be making it there next week, and obviously hoping to be back there in May.

But for now, the teams are at Ibrox. For Athletic Bilbao, it’s a return, but one that’s taken over fifty five years to come around.

Athletic Bilbao met Rangers back in the 1968/69 Inter Cities Fairs Cup quarter final – arguably the same stage as tonight. The Europa League is, after all, a rebrand of the UEFA Cup, and the UEFA Cup’s forerunner was the Inter Cities Fairs Cup.

Just as tonight, Athletic Bilbao were in Scotland for the first leg, and no doubt Rangers would love to have a similar result tonight as that night saw Rangers emerge 4-1 winners. Alex Ferguson, Andy Penman, Örjan Persson and Colin Stein scored the Rangers goals that night. We’ll save the second leg for next week, although there’s no footage of either that I can find!

The list of other teams representing Spain that have been to Ibrox is quite long, so we’ll run through them quickly as I know no one reads these blogs anyway!

Sevilla were the first to visit Ibrox, losing 4-0 in the 1962/63 Cup Winners Cup preliminary round. They did return in the 2009/10 Champions League group stage, winning 4-1 that night. I can get videos of the individual goals from the latter, but let’s not.

Real Madrid were next to visit Ibrox, winning 1-0 in the 1963/64 European Cup first round. To date, that has been their only visit, although they’ve certainly been to Glasgow more than that – twice winning the European Cup final in the city as well as more than one meeting with Celtic.

Real Zaragoza were the next team to visit, with Rangers winning 2-0 in the 1966/67 Cup Winners Cup quarter final. Another one I can’t find any footage of, unfortunately.

Valencia are the Spanish side to visit Ibrox most often, with three visits so far, and it gets progressively better for Rangers each time. The first came in the 1979/80 Cup Winners Cup second round where the visitors won 3-1. Two decades later, they won again in the Champions League group stages, this time winning 2-1. The most recent visit was in the 2010/11 Champions League group stage, this time they could only earn a 1-1 draw. I can only find the middle one of these three though.

Osasuna have visited Ibrox twice. The first saw Rangers win 1-0 in the 1985/86 UEFA Cup first round, whist the second saw a 1-1 draw in the 2006/07 UEFA Cup fourth round. I did find the whole game of the latter, but let’s just go with highlights from the former.

Villarreal have also visited twice, drawing both times. The 2-2 draw in the 2005/06 Champions League round of sixteen was the better of the two as it helped them progress on away goals, whilst the goalless draw in 2018/19 came in the Europa League group stage. This is another one where I can find the individual Rangers goals from the former, but here’s the far more recent latter.

The other two visitors have been Barcelona, whom would also not be too happy if I suggested they were Spanish, and which drew 0-0 in the 2007/08 Champions League group stage…

And most recently Real Betis visited in last season’s Europa League group stage, with Rangers winning that game 1-0.

Athletic Bilbao’s only other trip to Scotland came a couple of years before they faced Rangers. Back in the 1964/65 Inter Cities Fairs Cup third round, Athletic were at East End Park to face Dunfermline Athletic. That second leg saw Dunfermline win 1-0 courtesy of an Alex Smith goal, cancelling out the same result from the first leg. Unfortunately they then lost the coin toss and so the playoff to decide the winner of the tie took place back in Bilbao. We’ll come back to that one next week. Although, once more, I can’t find any footage of any of this tie.

Bringing us back to present day, Bilbao got to this quarter final by finishing second in the league phase of the Europa League. Of the eight games, they only dropped points in two. Match day one when they drew 1-1 away to Roma, and match day seven when they lost 4-1 away to Besiktas. So we’ll definitely take a look at that defeat!

The other games saw them beat AZ Alkmaar 2-0, Slavia Prague 1-0, Elfsborg 3-0, and Viktoria Plzen 3-1 at home, as well as Ludogorets 2-1 and Fenerbahce 2-0 away from home. Let’s take a look at that last one, just because it’s Jose Mourinho losing again.

Like Rangers, Athletic Bilbao therefore avoided the knockout round and went straight through to the last sixteen where they faced Roma once more. This time Roma won the first leg 2-1 in Italy, coming from behind after Inaki Williams had given the visitors the lead…

But a 3-1 win in Bilbao saw Athletic progress 4-3 on aggregate. They were rather aided by Mats Hummels being sent off after on 11 minutes. Eventually, Nico Williams scored in first half injury time, whilst Yuri Berchiche added a second midway through the second half and Williams scored again towards the end. Leandro Paredes’ second half injury time penalty wasn’t enough to get Roma back into the tie.

Rangers, of course, went all the way to penalties at Ibrox last time out. Having lead 3-1 from the away leg against Fenerbahce thanks to a goal from Cyriel Dessers and two from Vaclav Cerny…

The Turkish side managed to pull it back in regular time with a 2-0 win that no one added to in extra time. But Rangers prevailed in the shootout, winning 3-2. James Tavernier, Vaclav Cerny and Tom Lawrence all scoring their penalties, whilst Ianis Hagi’s miss didn’t matter in the end given Fenerbache missed three of their five!

The winner of this tie will face the winner of Lyon and Manchester United in the semi final, two opponents that Rangers lost to in the league phase. The second leg of this quarter final will take place next Thursday in Bilbao.

Athletic Bilbao are currently fourth in La Liga, thirteen points behind leaders Barcelona, nine behind second place Real Madrid and six behind third place Atletico Madrid with eight games remaining. On Sunday they drew 0-0 away to fifth place Villarreal to remain six points ahead of them. This coming Sunday they host Rayo Vallecano.

Rangers are currently second in the Scottish Premiership, thirteen points behind Celtic with six games remaining. On Saturday they lost 2-0 at home to third place Hibernian who are now fifteen points behind them. That defeat is a fifth straight loss at home for Rangers, a club record, and one they will definitely look to stop tonight. This coming Sunday, Rangers travel to Aberdeen knowing that if Celtic have beaten Kilmarnock the previous day then they’ll have to avoid defeat to stop the title being clinched before the league split.

Good luck to Rangers tonight!