Sky Sports.com

Advocaat: Crowd advantage

Related links

Teams

• Rangers

Also see

• SPL fixtures
• SPL table
• SPL stats

Zenit St Petersburg boss Dick Advocaat believes his old club Rangers will have a 'home' crowd advantage when the two sides face each other in the Ufa Cup final in Manchester on 14th May.

The Russian champions overcame Bayern Munich 5-1 on aggregate this week to set up the mouth-watering clash, while Rangers beat Fiorentina on penalties.

Advocaat, who managed Rangers from 1998 and 2001, believes Rangers fans will swamp Manchester for the match, creating a home game atmosphere for the Scottish side.

He said: "It could be like a home game for Rangers.

"I'm not sure how many of our fans will be at the game but it is not easy for them to get to Manchester.

"There might only be four or five thousand Zenit fans and if that is the case, then Rangers will have more than 40,000.

"One thing is sure, there will be many more Rangers fans than Zenit fans."

Cautious

After thumping Bayern 4-0 this week, the Russian side have been installed as favourites for the game but Advocaat is more cautious about their chances.

"I don't think we are favourites to win the trophy now. I think it is a 50-50 game," he said.

Rangers are in the hunt for a historic quadruple, which has earned manager Walter Smith the highest of praise - from Sir Alex Ferguson.

As well as the Uefa Cup final, Smith's team, who have already landed the CIS Cup, are also in the final of the Scottish Cup and are in contention in the SPL, being five points behind leaders Celtic with three games in hand.

This is a remarkable turn around for a club which as in disarray on the pitch when Smith took over from Paul Le Guen in January 2007.

Ferguson, who played for Rangers back in the late 60s, said: "A year ago they were about 15 points behind Celtic, there was a big reparations job to be done.

Unbelievable difference

"It's not the best Rangers team in Walter's time by any measure but through organisation and team spirit - he has brought back that great Rangers thing of playing for the jersey - I think that he has made an unbelievable difference to the team.

"He has had a lot of injuries too but is in the position where he can win four trophies and that is quite amazing.

"I think he has a difficult task winning the league though because of the number of games they have got left."