Signing players and building squads to short, medium and long term goals are crucial for any football club, but by the late 90s, coaching and tactics were catching up fast and Rangers fans were about to find out what modern actually looked like.
The backpass rule was introduced to football in 1992 to discourage time-wasting and teams engaging in overtly defensive tactics. It was common for goalkeepers and defenders to happily pass the ball amongst themselves to dully play out games, something Denmark managed with great success in their unprecedented European Championships victory that summer. The tactical landscape was about to change forever. Goalkeepers and defenders had to be more adept with the ball at their feet, doing more in less time and eventually in less space with the rise of pressing and counter-pressing.
Advocaat wasn’t a zealot of Total Football in a way that many others have been since, but he also didn’t stick rigidly to a particular formation or style. His flexibility was his strength as the team frequently switched between 4-3-3, 4-4-2 and 3-5-2 depending on the challenge and available players.
Advocaat quickly embedded a modern tactical approach from the start. His attacking style focused on dominating possession through midfield and overloading in the wide areas when required. His team were experts at exploiting space the opposition would leave down the flanks while maintaining a solid defensive structure behind the ball.
Champions League-winning goalkeeper Stefan Klos competed with French international Lionel Charbonnier in goals, giving Advocaat proven quality in a critical position. This experience was crucial, as they were replacing Andy Goram, a Rangers legend who many fans considered one of the best goalkeepers in Europe just a few years earlier. Klos joined midway through the season — Christmas Eve 1998 — and would become a more than worthy replacement for The Goalie throughout his nine years at Ibrox.
In the fullback areas, Arthur Numan provided width and an attacking threat from the left, with Tony Vidmar or Italian stalwart Sergio Porrini stationed as a more defensive right back.
Rangers under Advocaat certainly could not be accused of neglecting their defensive duties. Centre halves such as Lorenzo Amoruso and Colin Hendry provided a solid structure, ably supported by the returning Craig Moore. Coupled with the structured approach in the wide areas of the pitch, this allowed the team to guard against counterattacks without losing too much fluidity when they attacked.
Amoruso, in particular, was a fantastic defender for Rangers throughout his six years at the club. The Italian regularly came up with heroic moments at both ends of the pitch but was also prone to lapses in concentration at pivotal moments.
Chairman David Murray was desperate to give what was becoming an increasingly continental team a more Scottish feel. As such, Scotland’s 32-year-old captain Colin Hendry joined the Ibrox ranks for a not insignificant fee of £4m.
Hendry was initially promised the captaincy at Rangers, but due to delays in the transfer, he was unavailable for the first league game of the season. Advocaat elected to make Lorenzo Amoruso captain instead. Rumours abound throughout Hendry’s Rangers career that he was a Murray signing and that Advocaat thought he wasn’t the type of player suited to his system. This claim was disputed by Hendry, who revealed that Advocaat had previously tried to sign him for PSV Eindhoven a few seasons earlier.
Hendry’s time at Rangers would prove short, as he was sent to Coventry for approximately £700k just 18 months later. This deal represented a massive financial loss and was supposed to herald Rangers new modern era - but ended up symbolising it’s economic excess.
Advocaat would favour an asymmetrical approach in midfield, usually consisting of one traditional winger, either Kanchelskis on the right or Neil McCann on the left. The opposite flank would include a more natural central midfielder like Claudio Reyna or Jorg Albertz tucked in. Both could play several positions, including fullback. This versatility was essential to Advocaat as it allowed him to switch formations and personnel without the use of substitutions.
Central midfielders in Advocaat’s tactical framework were required to be versatile. They needed to be capable of contributing in both the defensive and offensive phases of play. Given the system’s flexibility and flank imbalance, the two central midfielders played an important role.
Giovanni Van Bronckhorst was a constant under Advocaat during those first two seasons and provided much-needed balance as a left-footer. Van Bronckhorst was an extremely elegant midfielder, capable of scoring from range, and had a high level of passing ability and vision.
In those first two seasons, the real star— and possibly surprise package — under Advocaat was 20-year-old Scottish midfielder Barry Ferguson. Ferguson had been whispered about as a potential talent for years before Advocaat’s arrival, and some felt he could far eclipse the talent of his older brother Derek Ferguson. Ferguson was given some fleeting appearances under Walter Smith, but given the pressures of chasing nine and ten in a row, the manager favoured more experienced players.
His Rangers career was reaching a crossroads in the summer of 1998, had Advocaat not immediately recognised his potential and technical ability. He became a mainstay in his team as he racked up 40 appearances in all competitions.
Of course, Ferguson would go on to captain the club and become a Rangers legend, making over 400 appearances and winning 15 major honours across two spells.
His tactical role and skillset would change dramatically throughout his career, but he could best be described as a deep-lying playmaker in those early years. Like Van Bronckhorst, his passing ability was a tremendous advantage to Rangers, and his ability to keep possession was crucial in Old Firm and European games.
This ball retention ability was summed up in Rangers UEFA Cup second round first leg tie against Bayer Leverkusen in Germany. Receiving the ball with his back to goal in Leverkusen’s half, Ferguson was immediately pressed by no fewer than five Leverkusen players keen to rob him and counter. Ferguson dropped his shoulder and spun on a sixpence in what would become a trademark move, taking the opposition players entirely out of the game. A quick pass to Jonathan Johansson followed, who fed in Giovanni Van Bronckhorst to finish uncharacteristically with his right foot and draw Rangers level on the stroke of halftime.
This innate ability to manipulate space and execute to a high level made Ferguson the poster boy of the early Advocaat era, and the player nicely summed up everything the manager was trying to achieve. Ferguson would assume the captaincy of Rangers at just 22 years of age in pretty acrimonious circumstances, as Amoruso was stripped of the armband by Advocaat in 2000. The Italian revealed years later that he had never spoken to his manager again after this decision, which lasted 14 months until Advocaat left Rangers in December 2001. Amoruso would cement himself further as a hero with the fans, culminating in his final game for the club, where he scored the winning goal in the Scottish Cup final of 2003 to secure the second treble of his Rangers career.
Intriguingly, history would repeat itself just six years later with Barry Ferguson also being stripped of the captaincy by a foreign manager under pressure, the Frenchman Paul Le Guen.
The tactical tweaks kept coming during that debut season, and one of the most significant came from the signing of Scottish winger Neil McCann. The 24-year-old had been a promising left winger during his two years at Hearts, playing a starring role for Hearts against Rangers on several occasions. As Advocaat had attended games and watched on intently before taking over the Rangers job, he was a player the Dutchman had identified as a potential signing over six months before he signed.
McCann allowed Rangers to change their system, turning Rangers into a different proposition. As per Advocaat’s asymmetrical approach, Jorg Albertz and Giovanni Van Bronckhorst were sometimes utilised on the left during those early months. Still, as good as they were, they didn’t possess the dynamism or directness of McCann. They liked to receive the ball into their feet and attack that way, but McCann had searing pace that gave Rangers a completely different dimension on the left-hand side of the attack.
McCann’s most famous hour as a Ranger is without question the 3-0 victory on 2nd May 1999, which sealed the league for Rangers at Parkhead, the home of their bitter rivals. Rangers showed their quality within the first 12 minutes, as a beautiful combination down the left sent Rod Wallace clear. A one-touch cross and a one-touch finish from McCann in the centre of the box gave Rangers the lead and one hand on the championship trophy.
In a game marred with controversy for all the wrong reasons - with referee Hugh Dallas struck by a coin by the home crowd - the Rangers players remained entirely unruffled by the chaos surrounding them. A first-half penalty from Jorg Albertz followed immediately after, but it would be Neil McCann again who settled the game. His second goal typified what McCann brought to the team. Starting in a more central role, he was a constant menace to a poor Celtic defence. Another quick one-touch passing move involving Colin Hendry and Jonatan Johansson allowed McCann to spin his defender and race through on goal to round the keeper and seal the championship for Rangers with 15 minutes remaining.
As Celtic fans and players alike continued to lose their heads, Rangers would add further insult to injury after the game, celebrating with a Huddle on the Parkhead pitch, much to the delight of the Rangers faithful in the away end.
McCann allowed Rangers to play with more risk and freedom due to his directness and pace. He could unlock opposition defences with his trickery but was equally adept at getting into the box and finishing chances himself, summed up perfectly by this incredible performance to seal Advocaat’s first league title and the second part of a stunning debut season treble.
Advocaat’s mix of control and directness tactically had proved it could play fantastic football and win trophies in Scotland. The real test was whether it travelled. In continental competitions, Advocaat utilised certain players almost like tactical tools, and Rangers started surprising Europe’s elite again.