Pedro Mendes calls for ‘under pressure’ Van Bronckhorst to mirror spirit of 2008-9 side and reveals funny story of signing for Rangers
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Van Bronckhorst feeling the heat, says Pedro Mendes
Pedro Mendes spent seven seasons playing in England and Scotland between 2004-10 and although he played for Tottenham and Portsmouth in the Premier League, some of his fondest memories came from his two years with Rangers.
In an exclusive interview with Ladbrokes: Fanzone, the Portuguese, now a football agent, discussed his time at Ibrox, but started the conversation talking about the troubles of the current team.
Gers can overturn seven-point gap just like in 2009
Rangers are such a passionate club, with such a great group of supporters. I have many friends associated with that club, and it’s hard to see them in this position they find themselves in at the moment.
But in that first season I had with Rangers, we faced a similar situation, where at one stage we were seven points behind Celtic, but we went on to clinch the title, so it’s still possible for this team to have some success at the end of this season. They just need that belief.
But what worries me at the moment isn’t necessarily that gap between Rangers and Celtic, it’s the way the team have been performing. Performances haven’t been good enough and players need to take responsibility. It’s crazy because if you go back six months, this team was playing in a European final. Something’s happened there. I don’t know whether it’s a mentality thing or the fact they’ve lost a couple of important players, but there’s a big difference between the Rangers we saw six months ago and the Rangers we’re seeing today. They need to go away and work on identifying exactly what it is that’s changed because there’s still time for them to turn their season around.
When you’re managing at a club like Rangers, you need to win every single game – that’s the mindset you must have. It’s the first thing you need to know and understand when you take the job; you need to win every single game. Of course, the Old Firm matches are the must-win games and there are going to be occasions where things don’t go your way in that fixture. But as for the rest of the league, you need to win every single game.
Of course Giovanni van Bronckhorst is under pressure. They have one more league game before the break and then I think there’s a run of must-win games after the World Cup before the big one against Celtic in the New Year. This is a pivotal point of the season for Van Bronckhorst and Rangers. You want to give yourself the best chance of heading into that Celtic game with as close a gap as possible, and then you need to go and win that game to put pressure on Celtic.
Maybe the break will be a good thing for the team, to work on things that aren’t right at the moment. But, of course, Van Bronckhorst is under pressure, I have no doubt about that.
Friday morning I flew to Glasgow, have a 20-minute jog at Murray Park in the afternoon and by Saturday I’m making my debut!
It’s a funny story how I ended up at Rangers. I had a day off so I travelled to London from Portsmouth when my phone rang. I was told there was a possibility Rangers were interested in signing me. “Let me speak to my wife!”, I said. I spoke with her, and I’m very lucky she said ‘why not?’ It was a different city for us to experience, another country, another culture and it was a chance to work with this fantastic club with so much history.
So that was on the Wednesday… by Friday I’m flying up to Glasgow at 6am. I went on my own and my wife visited Portugal. I got to Murray Park and met with Martin Bain, Walter Smith and Kenny McDowall – I don’t think Ally McCoist was around at the time. The first team had trained in the morning because they had a game on the Saturday.
Ken wanted to take me for a jog, and by the afternoon they told me I was in the squad for the game the next day! They gave me a list of who was starting the game and there I was. I had to try to memorise everyone’s names and numbers because it was the first time I was seeing my team-mates! So I arrived in Glasgow on the Friday morning, had a 20-minute jog with Kenny and on the Saturday I was in the starting line-up. We beat Hearts 2-0! It was the perfect start.
My wife came to join me a week or so later. She’s travelling from Portugal, where it would have been something like 35C, so she’s wearing just this white t-shirt, and when she arrived it was just that typical Glasgow rain, it was dark, and it was pretty much a difficult few days for her as she settled in!
We both love the place though, it’s a really special place for us, an amazing city with amazing people. It’s probably one of the best places I’ve ever lived. I love going back there, because everyone’s just so friendly with us.
My kids were five and three when we moved to Scotland, so my oldest was quick to pick up these little Scottish twangs in her accent. All of a sudden she starts saying ‘wee’ – we couldn’t believe it! She was in nursery in England, so she already had a bit of an accent, but then after a few months in Scotland she picked that up, too!
It was so difficult to understand what people were saying at times, I can’t lie. When you’re speaking with some of the Scottish guys in training, if they’re speaking very quickly, it’s impossible to understand. Jimmy Bell – the kitman – was another one; just impossible to understand that guy at times! He knew I didn’t have a clue what he was saying, but eventually I started to pick things up… he was another great, great guy.
Ally was a great character to have around the team, he really was a good guy. At the time it was Walter who was in charge, and Coisty came in as one of his assistants. What I found quite interesting was that Walter would let Coisty take charge of the team in cup games. I’d never experienced that before. Walter would just sit back and let Coisty run everything, and that’s when you saw another side to him; a serious side. The pressure was on him on those occasions, but for the rest of the days, he was a great, great guy to have around the training ground.
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