Man of the Round has to be St. Mirren’s Billy Mehmet, who single-handedly killed off a plucky East Stirling side today by scoring five of the Buddies’ six goals on the day. He doesn’t always have much in the way of proper service, but the man can finish, there’s no doubt of that.

More bad news piled on for Livingston, as they lost 3-0 to Third Division Albion Rovers. Hang in there, Livvie fans – it’s been an absolutely awful year.

The next round is midweek in the last week of August, when four more SPL sides will join in.

Full results:

Brechin City 4–0 Elgin City
Queen’s Park 1–4 Queen of the South
Inverness Caledonian Thistle 4 – 0 Annan Athletic
Stenhousemuir 0 – 5 St. Johnstone
Ross County 5 – 0 Montrose
East Stirlingshire 3 – 6 St. Mirren
Partick Thistle 5 – 1 Berwick Rangers
East Fife 2 – 3 Raith Rovers
Dundee 5 – 0 Stranraer
Stirling Albion 1 – 2 Ayr United
Airdrie United 0 – 0* Alloa Athletic
Cowdenbeath 1 – 3 Morton
Peterhead 0 – 3 Arbroath
Albion Rovers 3 – 0 Livingston
Clyde 1 – 3 Forfar Athletic
Dumbarton 0 – 5 Dunfermline Athletic

Here are the matchups:

Dundee United v. Dunfermline
The only match not covered by Offside blogs, and the only one to include a lower-division side. The Pars of Dunfermline have always produced good Cup runs, but a trip to Tannadice to face an in-form United will test them. United have had their share of troubles on the road this season, but have been strong at home, and should handle the Pars in this one.

Falkirk v. Inverness CT
Preview
Caley have made three quarterfinals in this competition and never made it farther, but given Falkirk’s horrific start, this might be their chance. Both sides need the momentum of a Cup win, even if they could use the midweek fixture off to heal.

Rangers v. Hamilton Academical
Preview
Cup holders Rangers play Accies for the second time in four days, after coming from behind to beat them 3-1 on Saturday. Can’t see this being too different, given how far Hamilton has slid from their season-starting form.

Kilmarnock v. Celtic
Preview
Celtic fans surely count this as the fourth-most-important competition the team plays in, but now that they’re two games from a final, even they’ll start to be more excited about the prospect of another trophy. Killie have been the surprise winners of the season, and might just have it in them to pull off another shocker here if the Celts are too distracted by other matters. More importantly, they’ll believe that they can, so this should be a good match.

Shame
I wrote on the main Offside page last season about the perplexing amount of Rangers games that Mike McCurry is still allowed to officiate. I have a lot of sympathy for Scottish refs, who don’t get paid a fraction of the amount they do down in England, but are of course held just as liable for mistakes. But when a ref is consistently wrong in favor of a certain team, even if that ref is still allowed to officiate, he certainly shouldn’t be allowed to run that team’s matches. Rangers start the season this weekend against Falkirk, and who’s in the center circle but Mike McCurry … for good and ill, very little ever changes in Scotland. At least they’ll see a friendly face after dropping out of Europe early, because that must have hurt, especially to Hearts junior.

The League Cup
It will still be some time before Rangers have to step in to defend their CIS Cup, but the lower leagues are already fighting it out for the chance to grab it. There were 14 matches in the first round of the cup on Tuesday, with some great ones mixed in. First, and I’m forced by virtue of being a Caley Thistle fan to mention this, Ross County was tossed out at home by Airdrie, by way of Paul di Giacomo’s 112th-minute winner. This was the only match with two First Division sides meeting up, and County is the only First Division side headed home early. For the most part, the matches went as expected, though the lucky 317 fans on hand to see Stranraer 3-6 Greenock Morton might disagree. The second round is played on August 26, with the field, now 28 strong, boiling down to the last 16.

Refs get their deal
With the start of the season only two days off, we at least know that we’ll have an opening day. For a while there, a looming referee strike put that very much in question. Like I said above, these guys aren’t paid nearly enough for a thankless job. The guys that oversee them, in my humble opinion, are overpaid if they make a single pound, because the regulation of refs has been a joke in Scotland as elsewhere in recent years. Still, I’m glad to see the officials making something closer to a decent sum for their job, and even more glad that the season kickoff won’t suffer for it. After all, it is Scotland, and we all know how fixtures tend to get behind in the winter.

Here’s to a great start to the SPL season, and, of course, MON THE CALEY.

Coming off of their 0-0 draw at Celtic Park, United had to feel like they were in with a very good chance at this cup. They’ve waited 14 years since their last trophy, the 1994 Scottish Cup, and with Rangers down a few key players and distracted by three other competitions, this was a great chance. In the 18th minute, the Terrors took a deserved lead when Noel Hunt drove home a poorly cleared ball from the Rangers defense. United would hold onto that lead for almost the entire match, despite some close chances both ways, until six minutes from full time, when Mark Kerr’s terrible backpass opened the door for Kris Boyd, who slotted home the equalizer, and it was extra time for the cup final.

Just into extra time, United kept the pressure on, with the best team goal of this year’s cup, a great flowing attack that ended in a Prince Buaben pass and a Mark de Vries goal. But Rangers would not be denied, and another United defensive mistake led to another late equalizer from, guess who, Kris Boyd. Boyd headed in after a poor clearance in the 113th minute, forcing the game to penalties.

All match, United keeper Lukasz Zaluska held up very well, and the penalties were no exception. He saved penalties from Jean-Claude Darcheville and Lee McCulloch, but that would not be enough, as three United misses left it down to Kris Boyd from the spot, and he confidently scored the winner to end the penalties at 3-2 and make sure the trophy would stay in Glasgow city limits.

That’s one down and three to go for Rangers. The UEFA Cup is going to be a tall order, considering their results so far, but the league is very possible this year, with Celtic three points behind with one more game played, and the Scottish Cup is quite possibly going to be an Old Firm final. Cup action continues in Scotland on Tuesday, as Celtic and Aberdeen replay their Scottish Cup quarterfinal tie.

On a side note, shame on the United support behind Aberdeen’s goal in the second half. Dons keeper Jamie Langfield was hit with a variety of items, including a plastic cup of tea, at about the 59th minute. I realize this is only a few fans, but if you’re at an away match with your mates and one of them throws a full tea cup at a player, you need to find some new mates. This kind of behavior is down not only to the people doing it, but the people around them that put up with it. It not only threw off the player, but it also stopped the match.

Dundee United now go on to face Rangers in the final on March 16th. This is Rangers’ first final since their 5-1 win over Motherwell in 2005, and the first for United since 1998, when they went down 3-0 to Celtic. United haven’t taken home the trophy in 1981, a dream 1-0 final victory over city rivals Dundee.

First, a disclaimer. As I’ve mentioned a few times in this blog, the weather in Scotland continues to be a problem, and led to the postponement of two more Scottish Cup matches this past weekend, so there is no guarantee that this match will be played. Let’s hope that the SFA are giving a cup semifinal its due attention and at least have the decency to postpone it earlier this time, so the sizable United support don’t have to truck themselves up to Aberdeen for nothing.

For those that haven’t spent much time watching Scottish football, you might not know much about the history of these teams and the connections between them. Everyone’s heard of the Old Firm, but in the 1980’s, a new set of teams came to the forefront of the Scottish game, Aberdeen and Dundee United, the so-called New Firm. This was the period that saw Aberdeen win not only the league but also the Cup Winners’ Cup, and United made it to the UEFA Cup final and took a league championship of their own.

On to the match itself. This is one of the most competitive fixtures imaginable in Scotland right now, with both teams doing reasonably well in the league. Aberdeen sees fixtures coming right and left in the next few months, with two domestic cups and the UEFA Cup still within their reach. United are hardly sitting idle either, having just played St. Mirren to a scoreless draw in the Scottish Cup to force another replay. Both sides are going into this match missing a key playmaker. Dons have lost Jamie Smith to a re-injured hamstring, while United, more famously, have lost Barry Robson to the ever-looming Celtic checkbook. Their draw with St. Mirren was a sign that the loss of their prolific midfielder (not to mention captain) will take a while to get over. Robson netted 11 of United’s total of 37 goals before his departure, and all offensive pressure will now fall to Irish striker Noel Hunt, who sits on ten himself so far. Time will tell whether Hunt has what it takes to step up and take control of this offense, or whether Dundee United is now a team with a single meaningful weapon, which every team will know how to mark and control.

To me, the edge has to be given to Aberdeen. Both Dons and United have thrived this year at home, and struggled on the road, and the more extreme case of this is seen in the Tangerines’ travels. United has lost 7 of 12 on the road, and allowed an average of two goals per road match. With the form of Dons keeper Jamie Langfield, one might very well be all the Dons need to move on and face Rangers. If a cup final wasn’t enough motivation, the chance to rob Rangers of a trophy will certainly add to the allure for Aberdeen. The rivalry between Celtic and Rangers is greater and more famous, but Rangers and Dons are two teams (and two groups of support) who genuinely don’t care for each other.

Prediction: 1-0 to Aberdeen.

And so, there will be no Old Firm cup derby this season, at least not in the league cup. Rangers have to be the favorite now, and will be hungry after two seasons without any trophies at Ibrox. Hearts and Aberdeen will be looking to spoil, but Dundee’s performance this past weekend against Rangers makes them a very dangerous side as well. Should be interesting.

Aberdeen v. Inverness CT
After disappointing starts, both of these sides are more concerned with a good long cup run than they might want to admit. Both have too often been bridesmaids (aka quarterfinalists) but haven’t been to the semis in a cup for a while. Though my heart is always with Caley Thistle, we’ve never beaten Aberdeen and I don’t see us starting tomorrow. I’ll tip Dons for a 2-1 home win. Prove me wrong, Caley!

Celtic v. Hearts
I have no such heart-vs-head qualms about this match. My head says “Celtic wins”. My heart says “Hearts lose”. Celtic 3-0.

Dundee United v. Hamilton Academical
God, I love the word “Academical”. It doesn’t seem right, but I love it just the same. I’ll miss seeing so much of it, because I see the Tangerines ending Hamilton’s giant-killing streak and continuing their undefeated home record. Beating Rangers this past weekend has to have them believing they can take Hamilton, and this match might well be repeated next season in the league, as Hamilton looks on track to be promoted. 3-1 United.

Motherwell v. Rangers
Rangers have stumbled domestically even as they excel in Europe. Motherwell has made a habit of surprising wins, such as their two victories over Hibs, one in the league and one in the last round of this cup. This is a hard one to call, because I really like Mark McGhee’s ‘Well to finish high in the SPL this season … but I’ll stick with the ‘Gers to step up, overcome their loss at Dundee United, and move on to the semis. Old Firm cup derby, anyone? 0-2 to Rangers.

Considering my predictive slump of late, I have virtually assured the rise of Inverness, Hearts, Hamilton and Motherwell by predicting them to lose. Okay, maybe not Hearts.