When a striker has planned a new goal celebration, you know they’re confident that the next finding of the net isn’t far away.

And as Cyriel Dessers stood mimicking the Olympic Games Turkish shooting star Yusuf Dikec in front of the travelling Rangers support in Lublin on Tuesday night, his broad smile told a story Important goals in Europe are not a new concept to the 29-year-old who very much made his name off the back a prolific run for Feyenoord on their road to the Europa Conference League Final in 2022. His strike to earn Rangers a 1-1 draw in their third-round Champions League qualifier against Dynamo Kyiv may have come at an earlier stage of the competition but could become so important if Philippe Clement’s side finish the job next week in Glasgow.

Read more: Check all the Rangers transfer news & rumours throughout the transfer window

While FC Twente or RB Salzburg will stand in the way of whoever progresses from the second-leg at Hampden next week, even reaching the play-off round would bring a welcome financial boost.

It looked like Clement’s side would be flying back to Scotland a goal behind after Andriy Yarmolenko’s first-half strike. Then, in injury time, a quick transition up the park that started with Dessers holding the play up before Jefte and Vaclav Cerny combined to create a chance at the front post levelled proceedings late on.

“I had a run at Feyenoord where I scored five or six goals in extra [stoppage] time, winning goals as well, so I had a nice run there. But obviously, to do it here in an important game like you say, that feels really good,” the forward said speaking after the game at the Lublin Arena.

“It feels like a reward for the work and the mentality that we showed today, and I think this could be a big one and a change of momentum because you see they are a very good team.

“If you see how they went off the pitch, the goalkeeper was angry shouting at his defender, the centre-back just walked off, so these things could get in their head.

“They thought maybe the job was done or they made a big step, but there is a lot to play for now and hopefully this can be an important moment. I think it's a very good result to take back to Glasgow with an important leg coming up - this should give us confidence.”

Dessers’ goal wasn’t his first effort of the game. The 29-year-old’s misses are often more magnified than most but Dessers’ is a mental resilience to continue and persist, never put off by the latest nearly moment. Earlier in the second half Kyiv’s keeper Georgiy Bushcan kept the Nigerian forward out spectacularly from a headed shot that seemed sure to find the net but in extra time there was no stopping his volleyed finish.

“When the ball left my head I thought it was a very good header, and I thought it was going in,” Dessers said of his earlier effort.

“Then I saw the hand of the goalkeeper, so I was a little bit sad. That's also the life of a striker, sometimes you finish well but then there's a goalkeeper or like when I hit the bar and the post at the weekend [against Hearts]. Even if you finish well sometimes you cannot score, but I was happy to score at the end.”

“We're still building and there's been a lot of hard work behind the scenes. I can understand that the fans and people from outside the club want to see immediate results, but in football it's not always like that. Hopefully, we're building now, brick by brick, and hopefully, we can show it sooner rather than later.

“I hope that a game like this, with a good result against a good team, can give us this push and this confidence to start performing like we were.”

Read more

Inside story - How 'non-elite talent' Cyriel Dessers nearly quit football

Clement on Dessers' growth, 'special' moment vs Kyiv and style of play question

Rangers won’t be able to count on the Ibrox factor over the next month due to ongoing delays to the Copland Road stand. As their summer rebuild continues and further transfer business unfolds the expectation to win while building will not subside as Clement’s men prepare to host Motherwell at the national stadium on Saturday.

“At Rangers there's always huge pressure, whether you’re playing Ross County or Motherwell or you’re in Europe, there's always a huge pressure,” added Dessers.

“You know that when you play for Rangers, you have these games, you have to perform every game. Every game is important, the result is always important.

“That's part of being here and as a player you have to embrace it and enjoy it, because that's also what you want, you want to play at a big club.”

“For sure, we'll miss Ibrox, that's for sure. But I'm happy we play at Hamden because it's a big stadium as well, it has the capacity for 50,000 and I know that the support there will be huge as well. I played there a few times now, semifinals, finals, and the stadium was half-filled with our fans and the noise was already unbelievable.

“So imagine this with full capacity. I think it has everything and it will give us the possibility to also be dominant with the support of our fans and we'll need them for sure because they're a little bit further off the pitch - maybe they’ll need to shout a little bit louder! But we'll need them and they will need to give us that little extra energy to push through and get through.”