Sometime in early May 1998 I sat in the manager’s office at Ibrox with Walter Smith, a man who was about to vacate that prestigious post of British club football. “Look up there,” Smith quipped with a smile, urging my gaze upon one of the walls of his office, where a series of portraits hung of all the Rangers managers since the club’s founding in 1872. A space was vacant at the end of the sequence. “I’m about to hang there,” Smith said, self-mockingly.

At that time Dick Advocaat was about to replace him as Rangers manager and a few more coaches would follow the Dutchman at Rangers. That May afternoon of ten years ago, Smith could not have imagined that he would be back at the club. Yet this week, more than ever, he is savouring the twist in his managerial career that took him back to Ibrox.

Smith’s career will feel complete when he leads Rangers into the Uefa Cup final against Zenit St Petersburg. It is a staggering twist, of course, that his foe in the opposing dugout will be Advocaat, although this is a secondary issue. Few managers have the pleasure of leading their teams into European finals and for Smith it is the final evidence that he deserves to be regarded as one of Scotland’s finest.

He is about to be added to a select band of Scots who have had such an honour — Sir Matt Busby, Jock Stein, Sir Alex Ferguson, Willie Waddell, Scot Symon, Bill Shankly and Jim McLean being the others. For Smith, though, the deed brings an extra significance because of the way he has often been underrated, even by some Rangers supporters.

When he was winning trophy upon trophy during his first tour of duty at Rangers, many took the view that Smith could hardly fail — after all, he was the manager of Rangers. A few managers before him — and a few since — have failed in the role, but that was hardly taken into account. Smith’s talent as a manager always seemed to be an invisible underlay in the context of being at such a big, strong club.

It took Craig Brown, then Scotland manager, to startle me with the news that Smith was highly talented in his craft. At the time, Scottish coaches such as Tommy McLean and Jimmy Calderwood were receiving lavish praise in the media, with words such as “astute” and “tactically clever” being showered on them, and this almost became the received wisdom. Brown bluntly said to me: “You know what? None of these guys could lace Walter Smith’s shoes as a manager. Walter knows what it’s all about.”

This week in Manchester the whole of Europe — or at least those Europeans who love football — may finally get Brown’s drift. Smith is chasing four trophies in his first full season back at Ibrox, but victory over Zenit would be the sweetest of all. The Scottish league title is important to Rangers, but a European bauble is extra-special. What clutching such a prize would denote to the club’s supporters is that Rangers belong among the elite of the game.

Smith is one of football’s honest men. There are no sides or pretensions to him. He belongs among the more intelligent breed of football managers, yet he does not milk that ingrained intelligence. He is also blessed with an endlessly self-deprecating humour. On more than one occasion this season a journalist has joked with Smith about the line doing the rounds about him receiving a knighthood — “Arise, Sir Walter,” as Her Majesty would recite — and he happily laughs along at the thought of it. Because of this equable character, more than a few members of the media will be quietly rooting for him in the City of Manchester Stadium.

Smith also remains blunt about his team’s progress to this final. “It has been a huge surprise for me that we’ve got this far,” he said. “When we started out this season at Rangers I didn’t think that we could do anything like this. I’ve said before that all I really wanted to do was steady the team, give it a bit of strength back and hopefully pose more of a threat to Celtic in the league. And if, along the way, we might do something in one of the [domestic] cups, then all the better. I didn’t think that we would be able to reach where we have in my first season back here. To play 18 games in Europe is something I never imagined. I felt that having qualified for the Champions League — very important in a financial sense — then that would be about as much as we could expect.

“Even then, this season, I had a concern once the Champions League draw was made that it would impact on our confidence level.“We could have taken a hiding in the Champions League. The fact is, the teams in there have a pedigree of success which we don’t have. Look at Lyons — they have won six titles and are going for seven in a row. Look at Stuttgart, who won one of the most competitive leagues in Europe. And Barcelona? I don’t have to add much about them.

“So I was really concerned about how we would fare, though fortunately it all turned out OK.

“Just qualifying for the Uefa Cup from that group was an achievement. We had been second in the SPL by a long way and had failed to challenge for the title last year, and add to that the fact that we brought in a lot of new players. That’s why I thought it would be too much to do all that and then try to compete with some of the teams we’ve faced this season.”