Matondo ready to motor at Rangers
SPEEDY WINGER WILL HIT THE ACCELERATOR WHEN HIS £2.5m DEAL IS DONE
EVEN as a player renowned for his speed, Rabbi Matondo’s rise to becoming a big-money talent was breathtakingly quick.
An £11million switch to Schalke arrived when he was just 18. And ultimately led to a kind of pause. Now, however, the 21-year-old Welsh international is primed to again hit the accelerator on his career once a £2.5m move to Rangers is confirmed.
With some formalities still to be completed, Matondo is set to answer Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s need for a new winger and arrive on the back of a successful loan spell with Cercle Brugge last season.
After being recruited to the Manchester City academy and then switching to Germany, Matondo’s time in Belgium provided a required spell of sustained first-team football.
It wasn’t wasted. A return of nine goals and two assists from 26 appearances in the Jupiler Pro League reminded everyone of the talent he possesses. Not to mention the ‘amazing’ pace that once saw him outstrip Raheem Sterling, Kyle Walker and Leroy Sane in training tests at City.
Cercle’s owners in Monaco wanted to trigger a £2.5m option to make the transfer from Schalke permanent, pitching the chance for him to tie down a World Cup place in Qatar this winter through more guaranteed club football.
But Matondo’s camp were already receiving interest from elsewhere. And their sights were set on reaching a level higher than a mid-table club in Belgium. Rangers have seen off rival suitors from France, England and elsewhere to move to the brink of confirming a signing that might prove one of the most intriguing of this whole window.
Matondo operated mainly on the left wing for Cercle, thriving in a 4-3-3 system after Dominik Thalhammer took over as coach midway through the campaign, but seems likely to fill a vacancy on his more natural right side at Rangers.
Finding the same space to attack as in Belgium will be tricky against the packed defences of the Scottish Premiership, yet Matondo has also exhibited the intelligence to create room through his movement.
Those who followed him closely at Cercle speak of a young player with a good attitude who always had something worthwhile to say when reflecting on his performances. Clearly, the scrutiny at Ibrox will be greater. Matondo, though, already has experience of the spotlight. And the pressure that accompanies it. Born in England to Congolese parents, he moved to Cardiff aged two. Games on Tremorfa Park with his father Dada, a former footballer in DR Congo, provided his introduction to the sport but it wasn’t too long before he earned a wider reputation in the Welsh capital. Coaches at Cardiff City regarded him as the best prospect to enter their academy since Aaron Ramsey. At Llanishen High School, Matondo’s PE teachers had to block enthusiastic attempts to play rugby in case it led to an injury that might affect his prodigious football prospects. Now and then, he still managed to sneak his way into oval-ball action.
Manchester City came calling when he was 15. Not for the last time, Matondo felt he had to grasp a chance to move out of his comfort zone and try something new.
‘It was hard being on my own, without my parents, without my friends and I’d just left them behind,’ he has reflected.
‘But I’m happy I made the move to go up. I think I needed that in my life. Everything before felt so comfortable at Cardiff. I was just living at home, going to school, seeing my friends. My parents were there. Everyone was there for me.
‘Cardiff was very, very important to my career. But I want to be the best player I can be and I will make any sacrifice to be the best.’
Proudly Welsh, Matondo committed his international future to the country in which he grew up while taking more forward steps at City. Rapid ones.
‘We did fitness tests and we had to do 20metre sprints and other things as well,’ he said.
‘It turned out my time was the fastest in the academy, and it later came out that it was the fastest in the whole club.
‘I’m not too sure about that personally, but that’s what they said and, as you know, there are some really fast players at Manchester City.’
That pace was one of the factors that lured Schalke into making an offer of £8m up front with more to follow in January 2019. Matondo relished his experience of first-team training under Pep Guardiola but gaining actual minutes on the pitch with City was always going to be a difficult task.
Jadon Sancho had moved from Manchester to Germany with Borussia Dortmund two years earlier and thrived. Matondo hoped to do the same with rivals Schalke.
‘They (City) tried to keep me, but they respected that I knew I was doing what I thought was the right thing for my career,’ he has recalled.
‘I liked the vibe I was getting from Schalke and the manager at the time, (Domenico) Tedesco, who was always contacting me and speaking of me highly and telling me what he could get out of me. I loved the atmosphere at the Veltins-Arena, so I thought this was the right platform for me to improve and showcase my talent, and hopefully get to the level I believe I can get to in the future.’
It didn’t quite pan out that
way, not least because of the incessant upheaval at his new club. Schalke initially looked a promising side under Tedesco but then collapsed, kicking off an extraordinary managerial turnover.
Including interim appointments, Schalke have had eight different coaches in the three-and-a-half years since Matondo signed.
They were relegated last year — while Matondo was on loan at Stoke City — before reclaiming their Bundesliga place. This was not a stable environment for growth.
Matondo still made 29 Bundesliga appearances, scoring twice, and was active in raising awareness about the Black Lives Matter movement. But, with Schalke looking to cut costs, an exit began to look increasingly likely.
A four-month stint at Stoke in 2021 preceded his successful spell with Cercle Brugge. Now Glasgow beckons. Matondo and Rangers will both hope the move pays speedy dividends.