Tonight, the eyes of UEFA will be on the Union Brats and their club.

Tonight, as I wrote the other day, the Union Brats are throwing a street party outside Ibrox prior to their game. This is ludicrous, of course. What exactly do they have to celebrate? It is beyond my comprehension. It’s just as hard to believe that the police are letting them away with it is also beyond my comprehension.

I’m tempted to wonder if perhaps this isn’t the reason they were involved in discussions about title celebrations involving our supporters. Maybe they’re planning to have their own Simply the Second Best party.

That would make a lot more sense than what they’re doing tonight.

They’re facing the team that’s currently fourth in La Liga. If they get something out of this game other than a beating, it will be a positive result.

In fact, it’ll be more than a positive result—it would be highly impressive, and it would increase Ferguson’s chances of getting the job. He may find himself with it wrapped up in a bow. The media will certainly want him to get it, and they’ll push even harder than they are right now.

I just can’t see it. I can’t see that result. I still laugh at the idea that there’s an outside chance Ferguson could wind up with the gig. His media cheerleaders are certainly not going to stop campaigning on his behalf.

But whatever happens on the park tonight, I think what happens off it will be just as interesting. The Brats will let off their fireworks and their smoke bombs and their flares outside the ground—that’s a fact.

But it’s only going to take one person to do something stupid inside the stadium, with a flare or a smoke bomb, to really put them in a bad spot.

They can’t help themselves. I think they know they’ll be branded as gutless if they don’t make some kind of demonstration of “strength” tonight. If they simply sit like good little boys and behave themselves, that will not exactly mark them out as free speech warriors or anything else. This is, after all, the centrepiece of their cultural ethos—their “freedom” to say what they want and do what they want.

This being “their” country and all that.

The club is going toe-to-toe with them. And if the club is seen to win, then they have even less credibility than they have right now. Which, frankly, is very little. They’re not leaders among the fanbase. They’re not especially respected among the wider support—not in the way the Green Brigade are.

The Green Brigade does a lot of obvious good. They do food bank campaigns. They do political fundraising on behalf of Palestine. They make points about social responsibility. Most of what they stand for paints us in a positive light.

The Brats, on the other hand, dwell in the sewer. They’re almost wholly negative in their outlook. They’re almost wholly irresponsible. Their idea of social responsibility is to sing songs about ethnic cleansing. That’s why I wonder if they even have it in them to behave tonight. That’s why I wonder if we’re not going to see them stir up a controversy and land the whole club in the hottest of hot water.

They completely underestimated the consequences of putting up that bigoted banner at the Fenerbahçe game. They underestimated not only their own club’s response, but UEFA’s response. And even UEFA’s response is only half done at the moment. The other half of it is that eyes will be on Ibrox for a long time to come.

They’re going to be listening to every song. They’re going to be looking at every banner that appears in the stands. They’re going to be watching for flares, fireworks, and any other kind of misbehaviour they can highlight.

And that may present the club with a long-term problem.

Tonight comes at a very bad time for the Union Brats. This little attempt to win back some of the support that’s been ebbing away from them—by throwing a party outside the ground—is going to be seen for the pitiful stunt that it is. It will do nothing to change the narrative. And if they misbehave inside the ground and the club is punished, the narrative around them will harden even further.

These are not the sharpest tools in the box. A smarter group of fans would never have put themselves in this position in the first place. They certainly wouldn’t have put their club in this position, at a time when there’s talk of some shareholders selling up to a US consortium. Regular readers will know where I think that one is going.

But it’s because these people have proved themselves to be so stupid, over and over again, that I don’t expect that to change tonight. I won’t be surprised at all if they put themselves back in the crosshairs of the club. Back in the crosshairs of UEFA. I won’t be surprised if they drag the club there with them.

So I’ll be watching. And I’m sure we’ll all be watching.

But we’re not the only ones who are. And that’s where the trouble is going to come from.

They brought this attention onto themselves. And so tonight, even as the game is raging, it’ll be interesting to see what they do.

The aftereffects may last longer than anything generated by the result itself.

Which, for the record, I think will be a comfortable win for the away team.