IT doesn’t need to be the team that drinks together wins together. The people are as important as the players, though.
Peter Lovenkrands arrived at Ibrox in 2000 and walked into a multi-cultured dressing room. The Dane was part of the Rangers family, but he soon made Light Blue friends.
The likes of Barry Ferguson, Neil McCann and Billy Dodds were the Scottish voices behind closed doors, but there was a strong Dutch contingent in Artur Numan, Michael Mols, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Ronald de Boer, Fernando Ricksen and Bert Konterman.
In Dick Advocaat’s very own League of Nations, Stefan Klos and Jorg Albertz were key members of the side, as were Lorenzo Amoruso and Tugay.
Over time, the faces, both in the dugout and on the park, would change, but the need for a squad to become a team was as important as ever.
It is a challenge that Pedro Caixinha must overcome this season as the likes of Fabio Cardoso, Carlos Pena and Alfredo Morelos look to settle into life in Scotland.
The Portuguese has overhauled his Gers ranks in recent weeks and now he has to get them up to speed as quickly as possible in the Premiership.
Lovenkrands returned to Rangers earlier this summer after he was appointed to the Intermediate Academy as part of a coaching overhaul at Auchenhowie.
And the 37-year-old hopes the new arrivals and the tried and trusted stars in Caixinha’s ranks can become a Light Blue unit sooner rather than later.
“It all depends on the type of player that you are,” he told SportTimes.
“I came here from Denmark but I wanted to integrate with other people and I made the effort to be part of it. If you don’t, it is going to be tough.
“I have been there with people who aren’t interested in bonding but I have seen how it can benefit the team when you are so close.
"I had that experience at Newcastle as well. There were 12, 14 players that went to the cinema and went for food during the week because we just loved spending time with each other.
“We played cards, we played Uno and we had a laugh. We were a good bunch. It was the likes of Gutierrez and Coloccini from Argentina, me from Denmark, the English boys, French boys, and it was great because we made the effort.
“If you don’t make the effort, how are you going to bond together? You can’t force it. You have got to want it to happen and we did that.
“You could see that on the pitch and you could tell we were close as players. It is important that the players take the initiative themselves.
“I am a big believer that when you go and get players in you look at their mentality as well.
“Are there rumours about their personalities? What are they like off the pitch?
“That is key as well. You don’t want someone who won’t behave and who will do things that could upset the group. I think that is very important.”
The season may have started on the ultimate downer for Rangers as they crashed out of the Europa League to Progres Niederkorn but there have been encouraging signs for supporters in recent weeks.
A short summer break and condensed pre-season were far from ideal preparations for the Gers and Caixinha has always been confident that his side would get better with time.
On Sunday, a double from Graham Dorrans clinched victory over Motherwell as Rangers got their Premiership campaign off to a solid start.
“I didn’t really care about the performance, it was all about the three points,” Lovenkrands said.
“Fir Park is a horrible place to go. The pitch looked good but with the slope on it, it is difficult and the foreign boys would have been like ‘what is going on here?’ when they walked out.
“It is a tough place to go and to come away with three points on the first day of the season is all that matters.
“There was some great football in between, I thought first half we were very good. The three points were all that mattered.
“Now they will get it and for the squad confidence wise it is good to get off to a good start and to take that wee bit of pressure off.
“If you get off to a slow start, people are on at you saying ‘that is it’. We got a winning start, got the three points and now you move on from there.
“There was some good football and good bits of play, but there were some nervous times as well.
“There are a lot of things to work on but the win is all that matters and now we move on, don’t look back and it is on to the next one.”
The points were the main positive for Caixinha on Sunday but there were other reasons to be cheerful for the Portuguese as Rangers avoided an opening weekend blip.
The Gers stormed out of the blocks with an eye-catching start to the tie before digging deep as the Steelmen pushed for a late leveller.
And Lovenkrands hopes the Ibrox squad will benefit from the experience and their first taste of Premiership action.
He said: “A lot of fans want to see good football and see lots of goals but there are certain games you look at and say ‘right, today it is three points’.
“If you can get a performance on top of that, great. If not, the win is all that matters at Rangers.
“I have been there where you get a draw and people think ‘right, that’s us, we’ve lost the league’. The Celtic team was that good and the Rangers team was that good that if you dropped points then you were giving the league to the other.
“Twice we won the league on the last day of the season and that shows you that at Rangers you need to have the mindset that a draw is not good enough.
“You have to win every single game and if you are not strong enough then it is a tough place to be.”
*Peter Lovenkrands was pictured promoting the Rangers Youth Development Company and their ‘£20k in 2017’ campaign.
Fans can sign up via the new direct debit scheme on their website - www.rydc.co.uk.
Since 2002 RYDC profits have been directed to Rangers Football Club’s youth programme - with more than £7 million provided in the last 15 years.
Visit www.rydc.co.uk for full details and more information on their portfolio of products which include Rangers Lotto, Scratchcards, Stadium Bricks, T Shirts and Rising Stars.
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here