RANGERS will resume their Europa League campaign on Thursday night as Steven Gerrard's men head to Germany for the second leg of their last-16 tie against Bayer Leverkusen.
Peter Bosz's side won the first leg at Ibrox 3-1 before football was brought to a shuddering halt as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, with Rangers' 1-0 win over Aberdeen last weekend the team's only competitive fixture since.
Bayer completed their Bundesliga season in that time, chalking up a fifth-place finish, as well as losing out 4-2 to Bayern Munich in the German Cup final.
The winner of the last-16 tie will advance to the quarter-finals of the competition, where the remaining fixtures will be played over a single leg in a mini-tournament format in Germany.
Here's everything you need to know ahead of the match.
Where is the game being played?
The match will take place behind closed doors at Leverkusen's BayArena.
What time is kick-off?
The game is scheduled to get under way at 5:55pm (UK time) on Thursday 6 August.
Is it on TV?
Yes. BT Sport 2 will be showing the game live, with their coverage beginning at 5:15pm. Additionally, subscribers to the broadcaster can stream the fixture via their app.
What are the pre-match odds?
Given their first-leg success, the home side are the heavy favourites to progress to the final eight. The Germans are the odds-on favourites to win the match and can be backed at around 8/13. If you fancy Gerrard's side to cause an upset though, most bookies are offering odds of around 17/4 for the visitors to win on the night.
What's the latest team news?
None of Rangers' latest signings will be eligible to play in the tie, meaning we won't see Kemar Roofe, Cedric Itten, Leon Balogun, Calvin Bassey or Jon McLaughlin in the squad. Ianis Hagi will be available, having been registered in January when he arrived on loan initially, while Andy Firth, Filip Helander and Jordan Jones have also been added to the European roster.
Jermain Defoe will miss out with a hamstring injury, and Finland internationalist Glen Kamara is suspended for the second leg.
The hosts will be missing out on a few players as well, with Tin Jedvaj and Paulinho missing out through injury while Nadiem Amiri is in quarantine and will not attend the match. The big news for Leverkusen is that Kai Havertz is expected to play, while 17-year-old midfielder Florian Wirtz has been added to the European squad.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here