With the very last kick of the ball, Cyriel Dessers delivered the perfect response to his critics. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.
Trailing Dynamo Kyiv to a first-half strike from Andriy Yarmolenko, Rangers were drinking in the last chance saloon.
Deep into four minutes of added time, substitute Vaclav Cerny kept the ball in play close to the corner flag and swung one last cross into a congested penalty area. Dessers evaded his marker to meet the ball at the near post and steer home a predatory equaliser from close range.
The small band of travelling Rangers supporters behind the goal rose to their feet in acclaim of a player slated for missing chances in the 0-0 draw with Hearts on Saturday. This is Dessers in a nutshell; one day he’s hot, the next day he’s not.
There was no time to restart the game. The ball placed on the centre spot, the Lithuanian referee blew the final whistle and Philippe Clement’s side had eked out a very useful result to take back to Glasgow for the second leg.
Cyriel Dessers scored a stoppage time equaliser to salvage a draw for Rangers in Lublin
Dessers steered home an equaliser from close range to secure a draw with Dynamo Kyiv
Ibrox comes into its own for Rangers on European nights. Switch on the floodlights and open the gates on a midweek night and the old stadium has the capacity to turn opponents to quivering wrecks. They fancy their chances against anyone.
There’s no Ibrox next week, of course. Delays to work on the Copland Road Stand will force Clement’s team to shift to Hampden for the foreseeable future. And the fear remains that Europe is the arena where the mismanagement of the summer will prove most costly.
An hour before kick off in the Arena Lublin, arch-rivals Celtic issued a stock market trading update.
A domestic league and cup double and increased gains from player trading prompted the Parkhead club to predict earnings ‘significantly higher than previous expectations’.
There is no trophy up for grabs for the balance sheet champions. Yet, in football, silverware has a habit of landing in the hands of the clubs with the most money and Rangers will find it increasingly difficult to keep pace if Celtic start spending some of their riches and a £40million bounty for qualification for the Champions League disappears down a manhole. The stakes next week could hardly be higher.
Qualification for the play-off round against RB Salzburg or FC Twente — Salzburg lead 1-0 after last night’s first leg — would bring in a £4m windfall. Come through a winnable tie to reach the promised land and the huge sums up for grabs would feel like a win on the lottery.
It was never just a football team Rangers were facing here in Poland. It was a national cause.
Rangers manager Phillippe Clement's side will hope to triumph in the second leg at Ibrox
Dynamo players emerged for the pre-match line-up draped in Ukrainian flags. Coach Oleksandr Shovkovskyi said his team were fighting for more than a place in the Champions League. They were fighting, also, for a nation under siege.
Sixty miles from the Ukrainian border, Lublin has become an adopted home for Dynamo. They lashed six goals past Serbia’s Partizan Belgrade in the second qualifying round and looked like giving Rangers a tough old night when they opened the scoring after 38 minutes.
At 34, Yarmolenko has been a thorn in Scottish sides before. The captain of the Ukraine national team scored the opening goal in a World Cup play-off defeat for Steve Clarke’s side at Hampden in June 2022. He’ll be back at the national stadium next week hoping to repeat the trick.
The goal stemmed from left-back Ridvan Yilmaz losing the ball to Oleksandr Karavayev in his own half. The full-back rolled the ball wide to last season’s top scorer Vladyslav Vanat. This time he was the provider, a driven cross proving meat and drink for Yarmolenko six yards from goal.
The loss of a goal was hard on a Rangers side which performed well for much of the match. Against a backdrop of low expectation, they went toe to toe with their opponents, pressing high and hard. Defeat would have been hard to take.
When Tom Lawrence stung the hands of Dynamo keeper Georgiy Bushchan in the second minute, it was a statement of attacking intent.
Before kick-off, news emerged of an unusual development. The Polish VAR team of Bartosz Frankowski and Tomasz Musial were removed from duty after police allegedly found the pair stealing a road sign and threw them in the drunk tank for the night.
Veteran Andriy Yarmolenko had put Dynamo Kiev ahead in the first half of the qualifier
Rangers battled back in a hard fought first leg of the Champions League qualifier in Lublin
Replaced at short notice, the replacement officials saw no need to involve themselves when Vanat nodded the ball into the net after 18 minutes following a fine low save from Jack Butland. The offside flag went up quickly, the goal disallowed.
Clement’s decision to include Ross McCausland in his starting XI raised eyebrows before kick-off. The Northern Ireland winger came in from the cold after playing no part in the 0-0 draw with Hearts at the weekend.
The decision almost looked inspired when a brilliant first touch saw the 21-year-old cut in from right, pull off an audacious nutmeg, beat two men and curl a left foot strike onto the outside of the upright with Dynamo keeper beaten. It would have been an outstanding goal.
When Yilmaz surrendered possession in his own half seven minutes from half-time, it was a reminder of the fine margins at this level. Rangers had played well, yet when Yarmolenko swept a sweeping attack into the net, they spent the remainder of the first half scrambling to avoid further damage.
Clement changed the personnel and the formation at half-time, introducing Brazilian signing Jefte as a left midfielder in a reshaped 4-4-1-1. Underwhelming in a pre-season defeat to Manchester United, the South American’s introduction proved surprisingly effective and almost paid dividends when he guided an enticing cross onto the head of Dessers eight minutes after the restart.
A glancing downward header looked destined to bounce into the bottom corner until Bushchan threw himself down and scooped the ball round the post with his left paw. A wonderful save, it was heartbreaking for Rangers.
Slated for his finishing at Tynecastle, Dessers remains an enigma wrapped in a conundrum. The scorer of 23 goals last season, his numbers remain defiantly respectable. His scoring record in Europe is decent, two goals against Betis teeing up a huge win last season before he had the final say here with the last kick of the ball.