Cyriel Dessers is eagerly anticipating Rangers’ Europa League campaign opener against Malmo, urging his teammates to embrace the challenges ahead. Rangers face a tough group stage draw, with matches against formidable sides including Lyon, Steaua Bucharest, Olympiacos, Nice, Tottenham, Manchester United, and Union Saint-Gilloise.
Speaking ahead of the trip to Sweden, where Rangers will face the reigning Allsvenskan champions, Dessers acknowledged the difficulty of the opening fixture but welcomed the opportunity. “Yeah, very excited. I think we have a very beautiful but very difficult draw,” said the Nigerian international, who scored twice in Rangers’ 3-0 victory over Dundee to reach the Premier Sports Cup semi-finals.
‘Malmo away is not an easy start, but these are the games you want to play when you’re playing in Europe. I think (the win over Dundee) can give us some confidence, a boost, and hopefully we can have a good performance there as well and hopefully win.’
Malmo, currently eight points clear at the top of the Swedish league, boast a strong record against Scottish clubs, with just one defeat in their last eight meetings dating back to 2011.
Dessers, who has seven goals in nine appearances this season, also addressed the competition for his spot in the starting lineup, particularly from Moroccan forward Hamza Igamane, who has impressed since joining in the summer. ‘At a big club like Rangers there will always be competition. I think that’s good, because we play 65 games in the season. Probably I will not play 65 games, all 90 minutes!
‘So I think it’s really good that Hamza and Dani (Danilo) are here. I’m sure we will need them and that they will be ready at that moment.
‘You can see Hamza, he has something. I can see it as well in training.
‘We’re helping each other because we know that in a long season like you have at Rangers, you cannot do it alone as a striker. We will need all of our strikers this season, and hopefully we can score a lot of goals — all of us.’