Beasley, Rangers Become the Toast of the Champions League

You can almost hear Groundskeeper Willie jump up and shout, "Take that, ya cheese-eating surrender monkeys!" At least, you would hear it if Willie weren't an Aberdeen supporter.

Still, watching Scotland have its way with France in soccer is just that entertaining. It started three weeks ago when Scotland upset Les Blues in Paris in a EURO 2008 qualifier. It's now moved to the club level, as Rangers not only upset French Ligue 1 champs Lyon in a Champions League match, but smashed them in a 3-0 stunner. In France.

Two games into its Champions League group stage campaign, the Glasgow club now finds itself with 6 points, and its October 23 home match against Barcelona, which also has 6 points in two games, just got a lot more interesting -- especially since nobody expected Rangers to finish even third in the group and drop into the UEFA Cup, let alone have any possibility of advancing to the knockout stage.

And it may be an American that gets them there. As Keith Jackson of the Daily Record noted, DaMarcus Beasley replaced struggling midfielder Steven Whittaker in the lineup, and guess what? Beasley was involved in all three goals. He took the corner kick that led to Lee McCulloch's opener, he put the ball at Daniel Cousin's feet to set up the second goal, and he rushed ahead to collect a high-arcing pass from Cousin and score the third goal.

I won't go so far as to say that DaMarcus Beasley is taking Rangers to the next level -- I want to see how he performs against Barcelona in three weeks -- but clearly, he's making the blue side of Glasgow very, very happy. How far can this club go? After this win in Lyon, it will be a lot more fun to find out.