Feyenoord's reinvention should act as inspiration to Rangers

Pierre van Hooijdonk’s standing amongst bluenoses was never that great, not only because of his Celtic connections, but it’s actually more for his role in Feyenoord knocking Rangers out of the UEFA Cup in 1999 with the big fella beating Stefan Klos twice with almost identical free-kicks.

But this old enemy had a story of reinvention and a return from the dead which Rangers would do well to take note of.

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Indeed, Van Hooijdonk was able to give these old rivals some hope about their club and where they can get to after such dark times. After all, his own favourite club has shown everyone that it is possible to make a serious mess of things and yet, with some patience and intelligence, still become champions.

Feyenoord for years found themselves trailing Ajax and PSV Eindhoven and so began to spend money they didn’t have on players who weren’t good enough in the hope their investment would be covered by Champions League money.

That didn’t happen, the club found themselves heavily in derby and miles away from the top of the league. It hardly helped that they were routinely routed in derby games; a 10-0 defeat to PSV a real low.

All of this should sound familiar.

However on Sunday, a rejuvenated Feyenoord, now managed by Giovanni van Bronkhorst, celebrated their first Eredivise title in 18 years and 150,000 people packed the streets of Rotterdam. This success was built on smart signings and blooding young players.

This is what Rangers must do from now on. The Rangers fans might have not been happy back in the day with big Pierre’s accuracy from a set-piece but they couldn’t argue with what he said on a visit to Scotland.

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“This is the story of Feyenoord,” stated Van Hooijdonk. “They got into big debt and started playing youth players. The good thing about that was they could still play them even when they had made mistakes because they were not going to be relegated - at one stage they fell to eighth or ninth in the league - but there was no pressure of relegation.

“The better players were sold to bring in some new money and then it was a matter of recruiting the right players. In the last couple of years they had chances to win the championship, but the self-belief wasn’t quite there yet among the squad because they felt they were still building.

“There was no pressure from the club put on the team to become champions and this year it was different because they spoke out about wanting to become champions and they had the feeling it was not an unrealistic idea.

“Feyenoord spent too much. They also tried to bring in all the famous guys, pay them good money, and it was more a gamble from the people in charge to save their asses. They hoped these guys were going to do it and automatically qualify for the Champions League and all that money would come back.

“But that didn’t happen. It might sound familiar to you guys!”

The Rangers story is more complicated than that, of course, but the parallels stare you in the face.

What is done is done and the most important thing for the board at Ibrox, and of course Pedro Caixinha, is not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Forget about landing a one-time big name or some kid from the depths of the English lower leagues. Be clever with recruitment and, as difficult as this is to take, forget trying to compete with Celtic.

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“If you don’t have the money you have to be creative and spend well,” said Van Hooijdonk. “Before what happened they (Rangers) signed ten players and if four were doing well that was okay. Now if they sign four all four have to do well.”

Whether this season was a one-off for Feyenoord remains to be seen; however, at least they are competitive again, a relevance in the league title. What Rangers would give for that in the near future.

“Will Rangers have to wait that 18 years for a title,” mused Van Hooijdonk. “No. I don’t think that will happen. For a club that size, to wait 18 years, is unusual.

“I have been back here over the last few years and most of the time we have this discussion about Celtic and Rangers. Where is the challenge? In any country you want to see a challenge. Although, to be fair, what about Germany? Is there a challenge. Bayern buys the best players from the number two team in the league.”

The problem for Rangers is their team are not even that. There was a time when everything seemed to be Dutch at Ibrox. They would do well to look to Rotterdam for a bit of much-needed inspiration.