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 drew 1-1 with 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 has only exemplified 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.

Steven had been sold to Marseille in August 1991 for a then British record of £5.5m 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 fatefully Rangers were drawn in the same Champions League group, having knocked out English champions Leeds United to qualify.

A victory in the Velodrome on April 7, 1993 would have taken Rangers to the first ever Champions League final against AC Milan. They valiantly drew 1-1 after Ian Durrant brilliantly equalised Franck Sauzee’s strike and 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 ended up in jail.

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

“I didn’t see the Niederkorn games but how on earth they didn’t get past them 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 back 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 day later I was in the Nou Camp playing against Michael Laudrup and Ronald Koeman in a pre-season tournament.

“I had known since pre-season that they were interested and I was taking my passport into training every day but it wasn’t until five to 12 on deadline day that the deal was done.

“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. Every home game the Velodrome was full of smoke with Van Halen’s Jump blaring from the speakers.

“It was like a festival every time we played there. 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.

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

“However, after a year I was back at Rangers because they could not pay the next instalment of the transfer fee and, of course, ironically we were drawn with Marseille in the group stage of the Champions League.

“It was effectively a semi-final that night in southern France because a victory for either side would have guaranteed a place in the final.

“We played very well that night and we could have won, but the same could be said of them.

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

“Mark Hateley’s story of being offered money not to play in the Velodrome is well documented.

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