As the City Of Manchester Stadium, home to Manchester City FC prepares to host the 2007/08 UEFA Cup Final between Scottish giants Glasgow Rangers and top Russian team Zenit St Petersburg, two of our leading partners, Betfair and Skybet, are preparing to give away free bets up to the value of£10 which can be used for this magnificent event. Traditionally the UEFA cup was only open to the runners-up of domestic league championships but in 1999 it was decided that they would merge the competition with the old Cup Winners’ Cup which means that some teams are allowed entry for winning domestic cup competitions which widened the event as a betting contest.

More recently teams have been allowed into the competition by qualifying through the infamous Intertoto Cup and the third place finishers in the Champions League group stage are also allowed to enter at the knockout stages. Glasgow Rangers are one team to benefit from these rules having being knocked out of the group stages of the Champions League having finished 3rd behind Barcelona and Lyon. Their “prize” was a fixture against Panathinaikos which they eventually scraped through thanks to the away goal rule against all the odds. German outfit Werder Bremen were their next opponents and they comfortably beat them 2-0 at home at Ibrox but struggled away from home, losing 1-0 but going through 2-1 on aggregate. Their fans and betting supporters then had to endure a tense semi-final against Italians Fiorentina drawing 0-0 at home and away before claiming their place in this years final with a 4-2 penalty shootout victory.

Zenit St Petersburg had a very difficult run up to the final. The 2007 Russian Champions had to rely on the away goal rule to dispatch Villarreal having won 1-0 at home but suffering a 2-1 defeat in Spain. Next up were Marseille and after a 2-0 home win was followed up with a 3-1 defeat in France they had to once again rely on the fact they score an away goal to go through to the quarter-finals. It was at this stage that Zenit sprung into action hammering Bayern Leverkusen 4-1 away to avenge the 1-0 defeat they suffered at home. Their reward was a semi-final place against the then favourites Bayern Munich and a 1-1 draw in Germany was followed up by an emphatic 4-0 win at home and a place in Manchester was theirs. Dick Advocaat will be hoping to steer his Russian team to victory and show the rangers supporters what he can do after he managed the Glasgow club from 1998-2002. If he does lead his team to victory he’ll have to do it without star striker Pavel Pogrebnyak, who with 10 goals is this years joint top scorer in the competition, as he is suspended for accumulating too many yellow cards.

Can Rangers find their scoring touch and lift yet another trophy? It certainly is a wide open betting contest.Both Betfair and Skybet are offering free bets that can be used throughout the final on outcomes such as first and last goalscorer, half and full-time scores and of course the overall winner of the 2007/08 UEFA Cup Final.