Rangers manager Michael Beale hailed a “good night” after his side beat Livingston 4-0 at Ibrox to reach the semi-finals of the Viaplay Cup.
After a bright start to the game, Abdallah Sima fired the hosts ahead just 10 minutes in before a brilliant solo effort from Ridvan Yilmaz doubled the lead in the second half.
They capped the match off with two quickfire goals in the final 10 minutes as Sima found the net from a deflection before Ryan Jack struck in stoppage time.
The win came on the back of a lacklustre 1-0 win against Motherwell in the cinch Premiership at the weekend, and Beale was pleased with how his side played.
“We won a third game in seven days, another clean sheet, we’re in a semi-final so it’s a good night for us,” he said.
“We just stayed with the ball a bit more first half, we were a bit more patient, I thought at times we could speed up a little bit, but in terms of our general possession it was much better than the weekend.
“Abdallah showed the way with his running off the ball, we need to do a bit more of that and by the end of the game we did.”
Beale also provided an injury update on Yilmaz, who was substituted shortly after scoring, and Kemar Roofe, who came off at half-time.
He said: “Ridvan was cramp and Kemar is a groin problem so we’ll know more tomorrow.”
Rangers will now meet with Hearts in the semi-final at Hampden Park in November.
Yilmaz’s stunning solo effort in the second half was arguably the pick of the goals after he made a great run from his own half down the centre of the pitch before firing the ball into the bottom corner.
He said: “(I’m) delighted for him because he’s had a rough first year and a bit to his Rangers career because he’s showed moments and flashes of why the club invested in him and why he was such a big talent in Turkey, in the national team so young, but obviously injuries have held him back.
“Hopefully that’s the start of him showing what he can do more regularly.”
Defeat knocked Livingston out of the competition, with Rangers’ victory kicked off by Sima’s finish in the first half.
The forward appeared to nudge Jamie Brandon off the ball before cutting inside to smash in the top corner and Livi manager David Martindale believes it was a foul.
“Disappointed because I did think it was a foul, I’ll be honest,” he said.
“Never got it but I thought we were spooked the first 15 minutes, I thought we struggled to get to grips with our shape.
“Then the second half, the second part of the first half I thought we managed to build ourselves back into the game, we limited them to very few chances because the first maybe 20/22 minutes something along those lines, there was a lot of chances going behind us quite a bit.
“I thought the second part of the first half we managed to build ourselves into the game, get ourselves in at half-time 1-0, had a chat, had a reshape and I thought we started the second half really well.
“I thought we were doing OK then we gave away a cheap goal, individual errors within that phase of play which was disappointing.”
United States mentality issues to blame for Canada loss
The United States must tackle some concerning mentality issues, which are to blame for their defeat to Canada.
That is the view of interim coach Mikey Varas, who has few answers for solving the problem.
USA were beaten 2-1 by Canada in Kansas City on Saturday, in their first game of the post-Gregg Berhalter era.
It marked Canada's first victory on US soil in 67 years.
And while Mauricio Pochettino reportedly waits in the wings to take over the Stars and Stripes, Varas hit out at the team's mentality.
"The mentality is on the players. They know it," he told reporters.
"We speak the truth to each other. I love those guys. But they know that mentality to fight, to run and to sacrifice, I can't do that for them. That's on them.
"I'm not a psychologist, so I don't know. I felt that the training [sessions] were intense. They were aggressive.
"But when the game comes, you gotta get going. And the players are the ones that bring that. Coaches can only get you so far from a mentality perspective."
Varas did shoulder some of the blame, too, suggesting he may have tried to introduce too many new ideas, too soon.
"I think on the ball, that's on me," he said.
"I want to present some ideas to them and you just never know how it's going to translate from training to the game after three training sessions. And I asked a lot of them, you know, and if there's a goal, I mean, that's on me.
"When you don't have a lot of time to work and you want to play a certain way it creates confusion.
"Players are going to take responsibility for quality of action. The translation of the ideas wasn't clear enough because you shouldn't be static and you shouldn't pass the ball just to pass the ball. You're trying to be trying to accelerate play as quickly as you can."
Nagelsmann backs Musiala and Wirtz for Ballon d'Or
Germany have two potential Ballon d'Or winners on their hands in Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz, so says Julian Nagelsmann.
Musiala scored once and laid on three assists as Germany hammered Hungary 5-0 in the Nations League on Saturday.
One of Musiala's assists teed up Wirtz to make it 3-0, after the Bayer Leverkusen star had teed up Germany's number 10 for the hosts' second goal in Dusseldorf.
Musiala created seven chances throughout, while Wirtz played two key passes as Germany mustered 3.7 xG to Hungary's 1.1.
“When both are in the mood and really put their foot down, it's difficult for the opposition, they're exceptionally good," Nagelsmann told ZDF.
"These are two footballers – when they link up with each other, it's very, very good to watch.
"Jamal has already undergone a great transformation in the past year in terms of his presence in the box. During [Euro 2024] it was very good, today it was phenomenal."
Speaking to Sky Sport, Nagelsmann said: "Both [Musiala and Wirtz] have the potential to win the Ballon d'Or."
At the age of 21 years and 194 days, Musiala became the youngest player to record four direct goal involvements in a single Nations League match.
Niclas Fullkrug opened the scoring just before the half-hour, and the West Ham forward said: "It is fun to watch that today.
"Jamal was in really good form. It is great to have him in the squad.
"We made a lot of deep runs and made it really hard for the opponents. Even when we did not have possession we controlled the game."
Columbus Crew 0-4 Seattle Sounders: Rusnak hat-trick stuns MLS Cup champions
Albert Rusnak's hat-trick propelled the Seattle Sounders to a shock 4-0 win over the 10-man Columbus Crew.
The short-handed Crew were dealt a huge blow when, in the second minute of first-half stoppage time, goalkeeper Abraham Romero saw red for a foul on Jordan Morris.
With regular goalkeepers Patrick Schulte and Nicholas Hagen on international duty, Crew coach Wilfried Nancy had to turn to centre-back Sean Zawadzki.
But it took Seattle just four minutes to get the better of the stand-in, with Rusnak converting the resulting free-kick following Romero's foul.
Morris doubled Seattle's tally on the hour mark, with Rusnak then completing his hat-trick with a quickfire double.
Columbus are third in the Eastern Conference, while Seattle are fifth in the West.
Data Debrief: Rusnak turns from provider to scorer
Rusnak had never scored a hat-trick before, but this one will be memorable for several reasons. It also came on the back of the midfielder creating six chances in last week's loss to the Portland Timbers, which was the most by any Sounders player in a single regular-season game in over three years.
The defeat was just Columbus' second at home in the space of 39 matches, though Seattle have now won six of their nine regular-season visits to Columbus, the highest winning percentage of any MLS team to have played the Crew eight or more times on the road.
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