Walter Smith has backed Rangers to fire themselves into the UEFA Cup semi-finals, despite Thursday's 0-0 draw with Sporting Lisbon at Ibrox.The last-eight tie remains firmly in the balance, after a first leg which produced no goals and few chances.

Rangers face a daunting prospect in Lisbon, but Smith sees no reason why his players cannot produce the goods next Thursday.

His confidence is backed up by away goals in the Champions League against FK Zeta, Lyon and Stuttgart - as well as Panathinaikos in the UEFA Cup.

"The away game will be along similar lines to tonight's tie. I think it will be quite close," he predicted.

"But we have shown that we can go away from home and score goals - and we would hope that we manage to do so next week.

"It wasn't just in Panathinaikos. We have also managed to get goals in Stuttgart and Lyon, and in Zeta in the early part of the qualifying games."

Rangers have been rock solid defensively this season but must cope with the loss of David Weir for the second leg, after the veteran centre-half picked up a booking for a late foul on Liedson which rules him out of the trip to Lisbon.

Smith added: "Obviously we are disappointed to lose Davie, but we have no complaints about the booking.

"We just have to face up to the fact that we lose him."

The aspect of the game which did disappoint Smith was the lack of cutting edge in attack from Rangers on Thursday night.

Lee McCulloch, Steven Davis and Barry Ferguson all had half-chances - but Rui Patricio was never really troubled in the Sporting goal.

"Overall, I don't think we can argue with the result," said the Rangers boss.

"There weren't many clear-cut opportunities for either team.

"There was frustration, because I felt we didn't play as well tonight as we have done in the other European games.

"I'm a little bit disappointed we didn't test the goalie more. But I always felt it was going to be a tight game, and there were very few opportunities for either team."

Sporting coach Paulo Bento believes both teams still have an equal chance of progressing to a last-four meeting with Fiorentina or PSV Eindhoven, who drew 1-1 in Italy tonight.

He said: "Our objective is always to win the match. Rangers played well and were very strong defensively.

"In the next match at home we will have to play well for 90 minutes. It is still 50-50 for each team to go through."

Sporting overcame Bolton 2-1 on aggregate in the last round, and Bento added: "The game with Bolton was a different type of game - here they play more direct football.

"The result in the first game with Bolton was much better, but we have to be confident for the next game with Rangers.

"Technically and tactically we were better - and we just need to hold our emotions for the next game and not get carried away."

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