Rangers were tossed out of Europe in humiliating fashion yesterday, capitulating before Kaiserslautern and their raucous supporters. Both the game and his tactical plan imploded before the eyes of Dick Advocaat, the Rangers manager, as Kaiserslautern sliced at will through a flatfooted defence.

With Rangers trailing at the break, Advocaat sent out a re-cast unit in the second half with the intention of aggressively taking this game to the home side and building on Rangers' 1-0 win in Glasgow. The script, though, began to smoulder the moment Youri Djorkaeff cleverly released Andreas Buck on goal and he calmly prodded the ball home.

Vratislav Lokvenc, Kaiserslautern's towering Czech, added a third in the 78th minute as Rangers disintegrated; Klos, indeed, saved them at least twice in the dying minutes. How different it could have been had Rangers converted just one of the three good chances that fell to them in the opening 45 minutes. Neither Jorg Albertz nor poor Kenny Miller, twice, could pull off the deed.

"We have no excuses - Kaiserslautern were the better team and deserved to go through," said Advocaat. "I think we had maybe five or six chances overall in this game, on top of the many we created at Ibrox in the first game, and we failed to take them. At this level of European football, if you do that, you lose."

In the combustible atmosphere, Rangers toiled to recover from a goal conceded criminally early. Kaiserslautern's clever passing was already making Rangers giddy before Miroslav Klose, their prized young striker, burst into the box with Scott Wilson wobbling in front of him. With the defender falling over, Klose prodded a shot which became airborne and flew past the startled Klos.

Buck's strike in the 63rd minute was a beautiful creation by Djorkaeff, confounding Rangers' offside trap. The third from Lokvenc 12 minutes from time was a downward header past a hacked-off Klos.

KAISERSLAUTERN: G Koch; H Koch, Yakin, Ramzy; Buck, Hristov (Basler, 87 mins), Komljenovic (Strasser, 3), Grammozis; Djorkaeff; Klose (Marschall, 69), Lokvenc.

RANGERS: Klos; Wilson, Konterman, Amoruso; Ricksen (McCann, half-time), Reyna, Tugay (Dodds, 76), Albertz, Numan; Wallace, Miller (Mols, half-time).

Referee: K E Fisker (Denmark).