After the rain

Post heavy shower this afternoon. With a rather distant rumble of thunder.

Noticed a couple of days ago that while Hibs were succumbing to the worst ever aggregate defeat for a Scottish football team in European competition and St Johnstone were punching above their weight by beating experienced Norwegian European campaigners Rosenborg 2-1 on aggregate, another great Scandinavian team were also losing in the qualifying rounds of the Europa League. IFK Goteborg were beaten by Trencin from Slovakia. Goteborg won the UEFA Cup twice in the 1980s, the second time against my team Dundee United and I was there for the second leg. But the name of their opponents also rang a bell, as when I was on holiday in Prague in the late 1980s I saw Sparta Prague play Dukla Trencin, as they then were then, albeit at ice hockey. Hibs' 0-7 defeat at home, added to the 0-2 defeat away in Malmo gave them a nine goal deficit, one worse than Rangers 4-12 elimination by Eintracht Frankfurt, en route to that European Cup Final against Real Madrid in 1960. St Johnstone's opponents may not be as dominant in Norwegian football as they once were - thirteen league titles on the trot in the 1990s/2000s showing the value of success in the Champions League - but it was still a major scalp for a Scottish team outside the Old Firm.