Shoot-out sickener reminds James Tavernier of Rangers' Europa League heartbreak

Rangers captain James Tavernier admitted his side's penalty shoot-out defeat by Celtic in Sunday's Premier Sports Cup final felt similarly heart-breaking to their Europa League final loss two and a half years ago.

The Ibrox side were edged out 5-4 on spot-kicks after an exhilarating Old Firm derby showdown at Hampden was deadlocked at 3-3 by the end of extra-time.

Gers substitute Radvan Yilmaz was the only player not to score his penalty after he was denied by Kasper Schmeichel, leaving long-serving skipper Tavernier comparing it to the anguish of Seville 2022 - when Aaron Ramsey was the only one to miss in a 5-4 spot-kick defeat by Eintracht Frankfurt.

"It's obviously a sore one," said Tavernier. "It brings flashbacks from the Seville final, when you lose on a penalty shoot-out when the game's so close. These games are decided on small margins and I'm obviously proud of all the boys who were able to step up and take a penalty.

"It's one of those where it's a flip of a coin, you either win one on a penalty shoot-out or you don't. Obviously it was a hard day. Our aim was to win it, but we can take some positives out of this game."

Fellow defender Robin Propper felt Rangers showed character to equalise twice in the second half after the disappointment of having their half-time lead wiped out.

"I think we did very well in the game," said the Dutchman. "We had some good pressure on them sometimes. We had some chances. We came back after we went down.

"We came back, we came back again, so we showed some character today. I think you saw as well on the Celtic side, they had some troubles with us. But we did really good today in the end. I just wish we had that luck to win the game. That's not happened today but hopefully next time.

"Of course you want to be on the good side of the story. We did very well. We were good in the counter-attack. We were good and compact. We had a good plan I think today. The fans were with us. It was an amazing game."

This was Gers' first defeat of any kind since losing to Aberdeen at the end of October and Propper feels that - despite the pain of losing to their great rivals - they are starting to find their stride after a tough start to the campaign.

"If you see the last couple of games, the last couple of weeks, we improved I think," he said. "We win our matches. You see it today as well. We are not that far behind in the game, it's 3-3.

"We scored three goals. We had some chances. So of course we feel that we are closer."

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