France will be a fine thing
Gio looks forward to facing old mentor in final game of Europa group campaign
up to a good team in this fixture.” And as for this quirk of fate that sees him going up against an old mentor, van Bronckhorst nodded and said: “He has been there almost my whole career.
“When I was a young player coming from the academy of Feyenoord, Peter Bosz was the captain of the team.
“He really welcomed me in the squad and was very helpful.
“After that, he was the technical director of Feyenoord when I came back in 2007 after my time at Barcelona.
“I had a lot of conversations with him about the future of
Feyenoord and my role in that. Of course, being a head coach now, we played a lot against each other when he was with Heracles, Vitesse and with Ajax.
“I really enjoyed our friendship over the years and he has been there almost all of my career.”
Now Bosz will be given a close up of the next stage in van Bronckhorst’s development – as his one-time apprentice settles into his new role at Ibrox.
With four straight wins under his belt already, it’s so far, so good for Steven Gerrard’s replacement.
Tonight, however, is likely to represent the toughest test yet of this Rangers revival.
Van Bronckhorst said: “It is going really well and that is also to do with the willingness of the players. It is not easy to come in as a coach when you have a lot of games without a lot of time for preparation.
“We’ve had to do a lot in our team meetings and also in the sessions we’ve had on the pitch.
“They were really open to playing a bit differently than they were used to.
“But so far the development has been really good and we will keep pushing them to prepare for games and to have that willingness to win games, no matter what.
“That is the mentality we have to have as a club. These European games are always special.
“There is nothing at stake so when you win or lose it doesn’t matter because you are still in.
“But both teams and both managers want to win every game. For me, it’s the same as for Peter Bosz. I expect some changes with Lyon as well.
“They have some injury problems after the weekend but still they have a very big squad, a quality squad, so in the end we will face a strong Lyon side with a lot of quality.”