RIDVAN YILMAZ is confident Rangers will clinch a Champions League berth despite seeing their qualification hopes suffer a severe setback against Union Saint-Gilloise.
The Turkish internationalist made his debut for Giovanni van Bronckhorst's side on Tuesday night as goals from Teddy Teuma and Dante Vanzeir clinched a 2-0 win for the Belgians.
Rangers now face an uphill task to progress to the play-off round and a glamour tie with Monaco or PSV as they bid to reach the group stages for the first time in over a decade.
Yilmaz played at the highest level of European competition with Besiktas last term and knows exactly what is at stake at Ibrox next week.
Yilmaz said: "I believe that it is quite an important match both for fans and for the club. I think we have the ability and capabilities to join the Champions League and I think that will be the result.
"Of course it is true that Besiktas did not have a very good group stage last year and I played in two matches.
"I think that once you reach the Champions league that the players should double their performances as the Champions League is quite a difficult competition where the teams are quite challenging.
"Whatever we are doing you have to double your performances and try to do better because it is such a challenging one."
Yilmaz replaced Borna Barisic for the final 23 minutes at Den Dreef and is now poised to make his Premiership debut when Rangers host Kilmarnock on Saturday.
The 21-year-old has been brought in as a £5million replacement for Calvin Bassey after he clinched a record-breaking move to Ajax this summer.
Yilmaz could prove to be a shrewd investment for Rangers and he is determined to prove to be money well spent at Ibrox.
Yilmaz said: "I don’t know how many players they sold before me but I know they sold the player who used to play in my place. And this is very important for Rangers.
"Hopefully I will be one of those players who isn’t sold for a long time. But when I leave the club I leave them a lot of money."
