By Craig Rae
More than 46,000 packed Ibrox for the second time in five days as Rangers defeated Hamburg 2-1 in a match to celebrate the historic friendship between both clubs.
Rangers started on the front foot, and it was a Ridvan Yilmaz cross that almost led to the opener eight minutes in, but Hagi could only fire wide.
Michael Beale had called Rangers the ‘most wasteful team he’s ever seen in the final 3rd’ last season and for the first half it seemed that nothing had changed.
Both Kieran Dowell and Fashion Sakala missed big chances, the first being from a Sima cross and the second after a direct run from Sakala led to the keeper parrying the shot and Hagi firing over the bar.
The Zambian wouldn’t have to wait long for his goal though, as he pounced on a lapse from the Hamburg defence to put Rangers in front 38 minutes into the game.
He was causing mayhem for the Hamburg back line, and he won a penalty on the stroke of half-time as he was taken out with a late sliding challenge, James Tavernier stepped up and duly converted to round off a strong first-half performance and put Rangers 2-0 up.
As you would expect during pre-season, half time meant some changes and Yfeko, Souttar, Lundstram, Cantwell and Lammers came on for Balogun, Davies, Hagi, Dowell, and Sakala.
The second period didn’t start with the same pace as the first, but Rangers were still in control of possession with Nico Raskin dictating the tempo well and
a third should have been added just on the hour mark after a cross from Barisic was headed down to Sima from Lundstram but the forward somehow put it over the bar.
The game petered out with few chances being created for either side, but the big talking points were the returns of Kemar Roofe and Tom Lawrence, as well as Cyriel Dessers making his Ibrox bow.
Jack Butland didn’t have much to do but he is still waiting for his first Rangers clean after a worldie of a free kick was scored from Dompe into the top corner to give the Englishman no chance.
It was only a consolation for Hamburg though, as the final whistle blew shortly after with Rangers securing their first ever victory against their German friends.
The manager spoke about the transfer speculation post-match, with many fans hoping that Brazilian striker Danilo will be arriving soon from Feyenoord:
“Nothing has changed since yesterday, there’s been a lot of talk about bids being accepted and bids being rejected, it’s somewhere in the middle. We’ve been looking at other players at well, if it happens, it happens”.
The preparation for 23/24 continues in the meantime and up next is a test against Greek giants Olympicacos on Wednesday at Ibrox.
Rangers: Butland, Tavernier (Lawrence), Yilmaz (Barisic), Hagi (Cantwell), Matondo (Roofe), Sima (Dessers), Dowell (Lundstram), Davies (Souttar), Balogun (Yfeko), Sakala (Lammers), Raskin (Rice)
Hamburg: Fernandes, Heyer, Hadzikadunic, Glatzel, Pheria, Konigsdorffer, Ramos, Reis, Oztunali, Van Der Brempt, Meffert
Attendance: 46,542
