Ibrox regrets, Andy Goram friendship and feeling part of Rangers family - Marco Negri interview

A stunning six-month start in front of goal that has never been repeated for its deadly efficiency would be followed by a horrendous eye injury that would curtail not only his spell at Ibrox but, ultimately, his entire playing career.

The Italian was brought to the attention of the late Walter Smith after finding the back of the net with ease in the toughest league on the planet.

Negri scored 15 times for Perugia in Serie A in season 1996-97. He outscored the likes of Gabriel Batistuta, George Weah, Hernan Crespo and Enrico Chiesa, but his impressive goals tally wasn’t enough to save I Grifoni from relegation to Serie B.

After stumping up £3.5m, Negri was one of a handful of Italians that pitched up in Glasgow as Rangers looked to refresh an ageing squad in pursuit of the holy grail – 10-in-a-row.

It would be his first and only foray abroad but Negri told the Rangers Review he had no hesitation when the offer to join the Ibrox club was put to him.

He recalled: “When I signed for Rangers I already knew it was a big and great club.

“They had just won Nine-in-a-row and they gave me the chance to play in Europe and in the Champions League.

“Perugia was a good club but there were maybe 20,000 fans for the big games. I remember my first day at Ibrox, the Nike Family Day, it was just a friendly between Rangers A and Rangers B but it was sold out!

“There were 50,000 people there so I told myself, ‘This is something strange! It’s beautiful but it’s something strange.’

“I understood fully and completely the history and the importance of the club after I came to Scotland.”

To say Negri hit the ground running would be an understatement. His predatory instincts in front of goal saw him notch an incredible 23 goals in his first 10 games including five in the 5-1 demolition of Dundee United at Ibrox.

The Italian would bag a mammoth 31 league goals before the turn of the year.

It’s been 25 years since Negri’s goal blitz and there's been no player who has made such an immediate and dramatic impact in terms of pure numbers since.

So what was the secret to his blistering first six months at Ibrox?

“Confidence,” Negri explained.

“The best thing for a striker is confidence. I was really flying high because I was scoring a lot of goals also in the previous season in Italy in Serie A which, at the time, was the big league in football.

“Everybody was playing in Italy so my confidence was very high and when I signed for Rangers I was also lucky to play alongside such great players like Gazza and Brian Laudrup.

“I was a penalty box player and I told myself, ‘Hey, if I stay around the box I know that these guys can give some good service.’

“My job was just to be focused on the penalty box and try to finish the good work carried out by the likes of Gazza, Laudrup, Jorg Albertz, Ian Durrant, so many legends and just transform the assists from my teammates into goals and I was lucky to do that.”

With the club sitting proudly at the summit of the Scottish Premier Division and with the prospect of an international call-up ahead of the World Cup in France the following summer, disaster struck when he would suffer a horror eye injury while playing squash with countryman and Rangers teammate Sergio Porrini.

It was a devastating twist of fate that would ultimately cost the Italian his Rangers career and the club the chance to win 10 league titles on the bounce.

Looking back, Negri describes it as his biggest regret in his career and admits he didn’t apply himself as well as he could have in a bid to recapture his early season form.

He recalled: “It was really tough. If you are a footballer, you expect injuries because it’s part of the job. Whether it’s an ACL, ankle, back, whatever, but not a squash ball in your eye, in your retina. It was something strange.

“I started to think a lot, ‘Why me? Why right now?’ I was flying and there were rumours about a national team call-up.

“We were on the top of the league going for 10-in-a-row and then something so strange and so stupid and bizarre happened to me.

“It’s hard to fix it physically because I had an injury to my eye. The surgeon put me under a laser to recover the retina. It didn’t react very well to the light and then it was tough mentally.

“I was in a bubble and everything was perfect. I was flying very high with my club and suddenly I was very low. I couldn’t score and couldn’t play for two months.

“I couldn’t train because the pressure on my eye was very high. I couldn’t fly back home with family because the pressure of the plane was dangerous so it was frustrating.

“I spent two months in Glasgow doing nothing. I was walking about with sunglasses on in winter!

“It was really tough but I was expecting to come back and start again scoring goals and doing my job but the bubble wasn’t there anymore and then all the problems started.

“I made some mistakes because I was young and maybe didn’t react in the right way but that’s history.

“The biggest regret of that season is not giving to the Rangers fans the 10-in-a-row that they truly deserved. It’s my biggest regret.

“I regret that time also because I made some mistakes under Dick Advocaat but I truly think that if I could turn back time I was ready to be on the pitch, train and get fit. Under the style of Advocaat I could score a lot of goals, for sure.”

Rangers would finish the season trophyless for the first time in 12 years and it would prove to be the end of an era for much of the legendary Nine-in-a-row team including Walter Smith.

Negri is full of admiration for the man who introduced him to Rangers and it’s a view he shares with another two Ibrox icons who’ve sadly passed in recent months – Andy Goram and Jimmy Bell.

He said: “They were big characters of the club.

“They were so important for any player especially when you arrive at a new club, these kinds of guys set the standard.

“They would say, ‘Hey, at this club, the behaviour is this and the standard is very high on the pitch.’

“They were really small and simple rules but very important.

“I was really sad about the loss of Walter Smith. He was a great man and he was the best man-to-man manager I ever had.

“I was sad at the loss of the kitman, Jimmy Bell. He meant absolutely everything and also Andy Goram who I respected a lot.

“I was with him in Alloa for a meet and greet with the fans in March and we were just having a laugh. He was making a joke of me and my English and I was trying to steal a glass of his red wine from his bottle, in vain!

“But then the next day we had breakfast ‘Ciao Cicci’, that means with a lovely friend in Italy.

“Then, one week later, I read about his cancer. I was devastated because I didn’t expect it and losing a teammate is such a big thing.

“These kinds of guys, like Ally McCoist, Durrant, Stuart McCall, Richard Gough, Goram... it was a family.

“We were a team but they were a family that welcomed new players so it was like losing someone from your family.”

And speaking of family, despite his moody demeanour during his playing days, Negri is very much besotted with all things Rangers. The Italian is often seen posting pro-Rangers messages and videos on social media as well as taking part in fundraising matches.

He beams with pride at the bond he’s forged with Light Blues supporters: “I fully understand after my career ended just how big the family is of the Rangers fans.

“At the end of the month, I will be at the ERSA (European Rangers Supporters Association) in Benidorm. You go there like a guest but you come back like a friend.

“That’s the way you are with the Rangers support. They say, ‘Once a Ranger, always a Ranger’. We are a family but they are not just words, it's the truth.”