Giovanni van Bronckhorst has challenged Nigeria’s trio of Jose Aribo, Calvin Bassey, Leon Balogun and their Rangers’ teammates to replicate their Old Firm showing in order to make Europa League history at Ibrox.
The champions suffered another blow to their Premiership title defence yesterday as Celtic held out for a share of the spoils in the final Old Firm clash of the season.
Rangers will now turn their attentions to the semi-final second leg with RB Leipzig as they attempt to secure a spot in the Europa League final against Frankfurt or West Ham United.
And Van Bronckhorst has urged his side to dig deep once again despite seeing an encouraging derby display only rewarded with a draw.
Van Bronckhorst said: “Of course, we are disappointed with the draw. We knew we had to win here to close the gap to three points.
“That is one feeling I have. The other feeling is that I am really proud of our performance and I couldn’t ask more from my players and what they gave today.
“We pushed hard to try and win this. In the second half, we came back into the game and pushed hard in the last 15 minutes to try and win it, with a lot of risks.
“I think the belief and the intentions were there and the chances we had were big chances but we had to score them. There were moments in this game where we could get more than one point.
“I think we showed how strong we are physically and also mentally to come back from 1-0 down and get back in the game and created good chances to win.
“I am really happy with our performance and it is the same that we need on Thursday.”
Rangers head into their date with destiny against Leipzig knowing that only a win will do as they bid to overcome a narrow defeat in Germany and clinch a place in Seville later this month.