Rangers heroically clawed their way into the last eight of the Uefa Cup, though this was a night for copious amounts of Valium for Walter Smith, the manager, the entire Rangers bench and their legion of followers in Bremen. Rarely in Europe can a Scottish club have weathered such an onslaught and lived to tell the tale.

Rangers, leading 2-0 from the first leg in Glasgow, were put to the sword by Werder Bremen but somehow escaped with only minor scarring. That was in no small measure due to Allan McGregor, a cantankerous Rangers goalkeeper off the field, but a man who yet again last night showed that he possesses a robust pair of hands.

McGregor played an old-fashioned blinder for Rangers. A spate of scoring chances rained down on him but the 23-year-old goalkeeper threw himself about his goal to make an impressive series of blocks. Either that, or he simply stood stock-still and calmly clutched myriad corners and crosses that flew at him.

The defining moment of his excellence came in the 84th minute when, with his area once more under assault, the goalkeeper somehow made a block from Boubacar Sanogo, tipping the ball up against his bar.

How Rangers survived all this took some believing. At a conservative estimate Bremen created at least 15 good scoring chances but succeeded with only one of them. In front of McGregor, meanwhile, David Weir, Carlos Cuéllar and Christian Dailly threw any part of their anatomies before Bremen’s fevered attacks. What a spectacle it all was.

Some of it, too, was peculiar as much as brave. Nacho Novo, playing alone up front instead of Lee McCulloch, looked an odd tactic by Smith which wasn’t an unquestioning success. Yet the Rangers manager has an impressive bearing about him these days, and when his team won this frantic tie, Smith calmly strode from the arena, a contented but modest man. He has transformed his team’s fate.

“We knew we would come under a lot of pressure but we handled it very well,” Smith said. “And when my team did slip up, Allan made some fantastic saves. Managers are always loath to pick out a single player but it was a fantastic performance from Allan tonight. It a is a bit unexpected for us to be where we are in the Uefa Cup, but it is a great achievement by my players to have reached the last eight of a European competition.”

This was as tense and nervous as it can get for Rangers and it was, frankly, a minor miracle that Smith’s men went as long as 57 minutes without conceding a goal. Bremen brimmed with running and invention, harassing Rangers from all angles, and it proved a fatiguing experience for the visitors. For a club so built on “character”, as in the much-cited Jock Wallace canon, this was also a severe test of resolve.

It was unnerving for the 2,000 Rangers supporters inside the Weser Stadium to see their team coming under such siege as this. During the first half alone, Bremen had created enough chances to carve open a three or four-goal lead on the night, yet Rangers somehow kept them at bay.

Rangers’ defending was gutsy more than desperate, but even so, this was living dangerously. And such an onslaught and deep defending couldn’t possibly have been a part of the Smith game plan. Rangers, almost literally, spent the match camped in their own penalty box.

It wouldn’t do to tediously list the endless chances that came Bremen’s way, suffice to say that McGregor made a series of saves, most notably from Daniel Jensen, Patrick Owomoyela and Markus Rosenberg. When Hugo Almeida also wafted an easy header over the goalkeeper’s bar from five yards, there seemed something distinctly charmed about life for Rangers.

The visitors sprang a surprise by playing Novo on his own up front. Yet for much of the match Novo required a set of step-ladders to get any change out of Naldo and Per Mertesacker, a pair of Bremen centre-backs who, if they climbed one on top of the other, looked as though they’d be able to reach up and change one of the stadium’s floodlights. Novo, a frisky little Spaniard, beavered away as usual but exhausted himself in the process.

McGregor showed nerve aplenty, blocking a series of shots and ably clutching some of Diego’s inswinging crosses. A series of corners was also despatched by the Brazilian midfield player into the Rangers box, often into a dense thicket of blue-shirted defenders. Typical of the Rangers goalkeeper’s cool demeanour was the way he confidently grasped Naldo’s free kick just before half-time, yet all this Bremen pressing only seemed to be asking for trouble by Rangers.

It was impossible that Rangers could withstand such an assault without being breached, and Bremen’s opener duly came 12 minutes into the second half. Nor was it any surprise that it was the artistry of little Diego that created the goal. The Brazilian danced along the edge of the Rangers box, manoeuvred into a space amid the teeming bodies, and despatched a left-foot shot that finally beat McGregor low at his left post. Being realistic, it was a punishment that had been coming to Rangers, especially given that McGregor had already embarked on the second half with further heroics in twice saving from Jensen.

Thus came the test for Rangers, in trying to keep a rampant Bremen at bay. Charlie Adam made way for Steven Whittaker after 57 minutes, and Rangers desperately tried to haul themselves further up the pitch. The game, though, was simply unrelenting in the direction of McGregor’s goal.

Somehow, Rangers survived, most unforgettably when McGregor made that incredible save in the dying minutes from Sanogo.

Werder Bremen (4-3-3): T Wiese — P Owomoyela (sub: M Harnik, 77min), P Mertesacker, Naldo, S Boenisch — D Jensen, T Borowski, Diego — A Hunt, M Rosenburg, H Almeida (sub: B Sanogo, 65). Substitutes not used: C Vander, J Vranjes, M Ozil, D Tosic.

Rangers (4-2-3-1): A McGregor — K Broadfoot, C Cuéllar, D Weir, S Papac — B Hemdani, C Dailly — S Davis, B Ferguson, C Adam (sub: S Whittaker, 57) — N Novo (sub: L McCulloch, 77). Substitutes not used: N Alexander, T Buffel, K Thomson, K Boyd, S Naismith. Booked: Adam.

Referee: M Hansson (Sweden).

The qualifiers

Bayer Leverkusen
Bayern Munich
Fiorentina
Getafe
PSV Eindhoven
Rangers
Sporting Lisbon
Zenit St Petersburg

The draw for the quarter-finals and semi-finals takes place at lunchtime today, after the Champions League draw. Quarter-finals to be played on April 3 and 10, semi-finals on April 24 and May 1. The final is to be played on May 14 at the City of Manchester Stadium.