Four years in the making: Cyriel Dessers' Rangers move and the striker's lineage 'dream'

There is a sense from Cyriel Dessers that he was fated to one day become a Rangers player.

New Rangers player Cyriel Dessers joined his new team-mates on a pre-season trip to Germany.

To follow in an illustrious recent Nigerian international lineage at the Ibrox club. And that the timing of the striker’s £4.5million move from Cremonese this week just feels right. The Belgian-born forward first heard Rangers held an interest in him back in 2019, when current manager Michael Beale was assistant to Steven Gerrard. Then he was 24 and embarking on a new career with Dutch club Heracles – following spells with Utecht, Breda, Louvern, OH Leuven – in a campaign that earned him the status of the Eredvesie’s joint-top scorer, netting 15 goals in the covid-ended season.

Dessers gives the impression he would not then have felt ready to be chucked into the pressure-cooker of the Glasgow football domain – where he will be expected to replace the best version of Alfredo Morelos as the club’s trusted firepower. However, such an onus he now presents himself oven-ready for through varied subsequent experiences that have firmed up his game-maturing. A period during which he was the Conference League top scorer in 2021-22 with a 10-goal haul that allowed Feyenoord – where he was on loan from Genk – to reach the final of the competition, ahead of proving powerless to prevent Cremonese dropping out of Serie A last season. Dessers’ meagre six-goal return was caveated by a patella injury that counted him out for the closing six weeks of campaign. The club notably hovered above the relegation zone until he was rendered unavailable.

Much will rest on the shoulders of an attacker who must be regarded as Beale’s statement signing of the summer. A performer that stellar Rangers and Dutch international Ronald de Boer has described as bustling and “opportunistic”, and who will thrive if supplied with the belief Beale patently possesses in him. “I am at a good age right now, 28 is the perfect age where you are physically still at your top level and you’ve gained some experience from the last years,” said Dessers. He is a man won’t be fazed by the close attentions of any Scottish opponents after playing against “some pretty rough defenders in Italy … where they get away with a lot and referees don’t whistle as fast as they do in Belgium or the Netherlands”, as he neatly put it.

Dessers joins an illustrious list of Nigerian players to represent Rangers.

“So I think it’s the perfect time to play for trophies and, you hope, win them,” continued Dessers. “The mentally for Rangers, which is present at the moment, is already clear. It’s clear that I want to be a part of that. I believe I can bring some things, not just football-wise but mentality-wise, to the dressing room. I want to play a role in that. Feyenoord, and Genk in Belgium, are top teams and there’s always pressure to compete and to play for trophies, so that’s not new for me. Rangers is different but at Feyenoord the pressure was also very high. But that’s something I like and makes me perform even better. I hope I can show that in Glasgow. I’m not a real shouter in the locker room but I like to be present, I like to help guys. I don’t look at age. I want to help the younger guys, help the more experienced guys, and just be there. I hope I can lead the forward line on and off the pitch. Even if it’s with putting pressure on, putting the line, helping each other, coaching on the pitch. Just in general. But not in an explicit way …”

Dessers is explicit over the footsteps he hopes to follow in. Four years ago, Rangers had no real links with the international set-up in Nigeria, the country to which the striker committed through this being the birthplace of his mother. They do now through the memories and monetary benefits derived from the contributions made by Calvin Bassey, Joe Aribo and Leon Balogun in Ibrox colours. “Yeah of course,” said Dessers of speaking to the trio about making the move to their former club. “All of them have been pretty successful at Rangers so they had some good experiences here, and I knew that of course. I hope to be the next Nigerian national team player to be successful at Rangers, that would be a dream …”

Dessers dares to have reveries too that the May 2022 1-0 Conference League cup final loss to AS Roma – a showpiece arrived at through the 28-year-old netting in the group stages, quarter-finals and semi-finals – won’t be as close as he comes to continental success, Rangers sharing similar agonies then through losing out to Eintracht Frankfurt on a penalty shoot-out in the Europa League final a week earlier.

“If you’ve been to the final and get that close to winning a really big trophy then it hurts,” he said. “But it makes your hunger even bigger to finally lift a really big trophy. To do that at Rangers would be a dream. It is a big club in Europe so you see a lot of their highlights and also since I had that first contact with Rangers four years ago I’ve been following the club a little bit. So of course I saw their run to Seville. It was amazing. I was in a training camp in Portugal with Feyenoord preparing for our own final and watched that Europa League final. I was hoping for a Rangers win, but unfortunately it didn’t happen.”