Davie Weir is the eternal optimist, so it should come as no surprise that the performance of Scottish football's European entrants this week hasn't filled the Rangers defender with dread and despair.
At a time when calls are being made for major changes within the game from grassroots all the way up to the top, the Ibrox defender provides a calm and comforting vision on the overall state of the game.
Rangers' Old Firm rivals Celtic face an uphill struggle to maintain their bid to reach the group stage of the Champions League having lost 1-0 to Russian side Dynamo Moscow at Parkhead during the week.
Motherwell are all but out of the Europa League after going down 3-0 to Romanian outfit Steaua Bucharest and Aberdeen suffered an embarrassing 5-1 defeat at home to Czech side Sigma Olomouc. Falkirk, of course, are already out of the competition.
Weir, however, preferred to look for positives as he prepared to fly the flag for Scotland this weekend as Rangers enter the Emirates Cup, taking on PSG this afternoon and hosts Arsenal tomorrow.
"It was only a couple of seasons ago we reached the Uefa Cup final," said Weir. "And Celtic also reached the last 16 of the Champions League. So there have been some positive performances in Europe from both us and Celtic.
"Celtic are still well in the tie. Who is to say they won't win the tie and it won't work out alright for them? And last week they came down here to London and beat a strong Spurs side.
"Motherwell lost during the week to Steaua Bucharest, who are an extremely good side as well. So that was always going to be a difficult game for them and Aberdeen lost at home but those two results don't mean Scottish football is in crisis.
"I think sometimes we paint our game in a bad light and get too down on ourselves. If we can come up with ways to improve results in Europe then great, but there have certainly been some encouraging signs in the last few years."
Weir doesn't necessarily agree a good performance from Rangers in the Emirates Cup this weekend will restore some pride in the Scottish game, but he is desperate to perform well in both games against PSG and Arsenal.
He said: "I'd love to play in the two games. That's what I've prepared myself for and it will be down to the manager. But you look forward to these kind of games.
"I've been to the Emirates with Everton but I didn't play. I think I might have been injured. So it would be nice to play this weekend.
"It was fantastic to captain Rangers towards the end of last season and I wouldn't change that for the world. But I'd still be looking forward to this season even if I wasn't the captain."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article