Rangers finally ran out of nerve and endurance in their beating of superior opponents in this season’s Uefa Cup. A skilled and more inventive Zenit St Petersburg justly won this final last night, thanks to goals from Igor Denisov and Konstantin Zyrianov, which saw Walter Smith’s side finally crumple after a heroic, not to say dogged, run.

No one should begrudge Rangers their surprising success in reaching this occasion in Manchester, though it would have been a travesty had Dick Advocaat’s Zenit not claimed the trophy. For much of the match we witnessed the familiar sight of Rangers retreating in determined resistance, but this is not the type of football which claims the big prizes. Advocaat’s team, in contrast, were full of forward motion and and neat passing.

Following Denisov’s strike after 72 minutes, Smith sent on Lee McCulloch and, ultimately, Kris Boyd to try to perform a Rangers rescue act. But, barring one brief flurry of attacking early in the second half, Rangers were too impoverished in their play to win. In the dying seconds Smith’s men were flinging themselves around the Zenit’s goal, but this was the equivalent of not waving, but drowning.

Hand it to Advocaat, this was a marvellous triumph for the erratic but likeable Dutchman. When at Rangers, before some hired hands chased him out of Glasgow, his team played some gorgeous, exciting football, and the Advocaat recipe is being repeated now in St Petersburg. This coach can rightly now take his place, after all his haphazard successes, among the list of European managers to reckon with.

The atmosphere was pretty special inside the arena. The Rangers fans swarmed all over the stadium, with a certain Glaswegian gusto having snatched far more than their official 13,000 tickets, and they belted out their famous hymns at full voice.

The mind of their team manager, though, is another matter. What must the inside of Smith’s head be like when the plotting and planning take place? A certain caution, for sure, prevails. Many thought that Nacho Novo, an erratic but pesky player, might play from the start, but Smith instead likes the look of that big, solid citizen called Steven Whittaker. As a result, though by no means causing any shock, Rangers were not attack-minded.

Yet again any forward momentum from Smith’s side proved rare. When some fresh annals of Scottish football come to be written up, no one will confuse this 2008 Ibrox vintage with a bunch of invading vandals. The play flowed freely towards Neil Alexander’s goal, and David Weir, Carlos Cuéllar and Sasa Papac were forced into their usual dogged defiance.

The two teams represented a classic contrast in styles: Dick Advocaat’s three-man attack of Viktor Fayzulin, Fatih Tekke and the roving Andrei Arshavin, over and against Smith’s sole attacker in Jean-Claude Darcheville. Such caution has served Rangers well this season but it once more invited their opponents to attack in waves towards Weir and Cuéllar. These two have been among Rangers’ finest players this season, and little wonder, as they are also their busiest.

Zenit can count themselves unfortunate not to have won a penalty just before half-time when Roman Shirokov’s cross was blocked by Kirk Broadfoot’s outstretched arm. With just two minutes to go to the break, and with the game still goalless, it was a pivotal moment, and while the ball-playing-man argument raged, Rangers would certainly have shrieked for it themselves.

Broadfoot could count himself fortunate that Peter Frojdfeldt, the referee, dismissed the claim.

Zenit had almost snatched the lead after four minutes when Arshavin took Zyrianov’s pass and bore through on goal before striking into the side-netting. At the other end Radek Sirl lunged successfully to block Barry Ferguson right in front of goal, after Darcheville had barged into the six-yard area. That, though, was the sum of it in the first half from Rangers.

The Ibrox hordes interrupted their torpor with a rowdy rendering of The Cry Was No Surrender, and it suddenly seemed very apt. If this team of theirs was choosing not to attack, it certainly wasn’t for surrendering, either. A series of Zenit moves, invariably pieced together by Fayzulin and Arshavin, were blocked by the Rangers defence: limbs, midriffs, whatever.

In the second half, as ever, the game ascended to a different octave, and Rangers had their own penalty claim turned down after an almighty scramble in the Zenit area. Darcheville’s shot was saved by Vyacheslav Malafeev, who was left sprawling on the ground and groping after the loose ball. Ferguson was in there, too, foraging for a shot himself, when the ball sprang up and appeared to catch Denisov on the arm. Once again, though, the referee waved play on, despite Ferguson’s furious claims.

Two opportunities inside 60 seconds at either end then went abegging as the match began to stretch. First, Whittaker’s cleverly worked shot was blocked, and then Arshavin, having chased a long punt upfield, rounded Alexander, who had raced from his line, but saw Papac easily head his weak shot clear. In such moments, Rangers appeared to be making more of a game of this.

Yet Zenit, on merit, finally claimed the lead after 72 minutes and it was a typically creative goal. Denisov worked a lovely wall-pass with Arshavin, whose finely weighted return pass released Denisov beyond the Rangers defence and through on goal. The shot was despatched low and calmly behind Alexander. Novo then had a chance to equalise but blasted over. In the closing seconds Zyrianov made it two for Zenit, stabbing home from five yards.