It wasn’t so much what Malik Tillman did on the pitch on Tuesday night which caught the eye of Craig Moore. The American youngster did manage to achieve something quite spectacular with one superhuman leap to head Rangers one step closer to a £40million jackpot in the Champions League.
Moore doesn’t claim to have seen that glory goal coming from his seat in the Ibrox TV studio. But he had seen enough of the 20-year-old already to realise his old club might have a special talent on their hands. No, it was how Tillman’s emotions poured out in the immediate aftermath of the 3-0 win over Union Saint Gilloise which gave the Australian reason to believe the boy from Bayern Munich has what it takes to make it big in Glasgow.
“Talent is one thing. But character is everything,” was how Moore put it as he reflected on Tillman’s early coming of age moment in a blue shirt. Moore continued: “He most definitely looks like a player with a big career ahead of himself. When you have the talent that this kid has, the most important thing is that you stay humble and stay grounded.
“That’s why I loved his post match interview. You could see what it meant to him. He was quite emotional, there was a bit of a tear in his eye. He knew how much the occasion meant to everyone at the football club. And that’s exactly what you want to see as a fan. You want to see someone who is able to show emotion of what it actually means to him. Because we all know how much it means to the supporters.”
Few know better than Moore. The no-nonsense defender had two spells at the club spanning more than a decade, picking up six league titles along the way as well as performing at the pinnacle of the Champions League. Which is why he zoomed in on Tillman the moment the final whistle sounded.
Moore went on: “He was looking around and taking it all in. You could see he was almost taken aback by the scenes. We’ve seen it before. When you come to Scotland and play at Ibrox it does feel like something very different. Just look at Jude Bellingham’s reaction last season when he came with Dortmund and they went out for a training session the night before the match. He was like, ‘Wow! What a place this is!’.
“All of sudden you’ve got 50,000 in there giving it absolutely everything after a good tackle, a pass or a goal. There’s not many places that can match that. That’s why it was so good to see how much it meant to Tillman on the night. With recruitment, it’s important you bring in people who want to buy into what the club is all about and embrace it.”
Moore, though, believes the Ibrox fans will have to afford patience to Tillman as the youngster finds his feet in Scottish football - along with the rest of Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s summer signings. He went on: “At times throughout the season maybe there will be a bit of a dip in form or the consistency is not quite there. But he’ll have a good support network around him and the supporters can also play a huge role in backing him to go on and hit the heights.
“You don’t want these new players to go out there feeling nervy or on edge because the fans are giving them a hard time. But the early signs are very positive because I think the fans realise this boy could be a bit special. The challenge for any young footballer is trying to find that level of consistency but you can only get that on the back of playing regular football matches and making the odd mistake along the way.
“What he needs is to build up experience and to be exposed to a high end pressure which he’s most certainly going to get at Ibrox. But what I like about him already is his desire to get on the ball and make things happen. What really impressed me the other night was the way that he hung into that game, for such a young lad. It could have been easy for him to fade out of it but he never hid. He kept showing for the ball and then, at the end, he obviously came up with a massive moment. It’s not a bad way to announce yourself to the fans - scoring the goal that gets you a shot at PSV for a place in the Champions League!”
And Moore is convinced already that this is only just the start of Tillman making a mark at Ibrox. He said: “He’s definitely not what you would call a ‘curricular player’. He does things off the cuff and has an ability to act on instinct and express himself. That means he’s not predictable. As a defender, the unpredictable players are the ones you hate to come up against because you never knew what to expect.
“Tillman looks like the type of player who is impossible to second guess. When you have that and you add in experience and confidence that he will get from scoring that goal the other night, then you are looking at a very dangerous player. He instinctively takes up really good positions in central areas and that’s an art.
“Some players just get it. They know the areas where they can cause the maximum amount of damage. And Tillman looks like one of them.”
Ironically enough, Moore came up against a fair few of those special strikers back in the day. And one of them is about to return to Ibrox next week as the manager of the side standing between Tillman and a place in Europe’s elite competition. Moore smiled: “PSV are a very good side with a manager I know very well from my playing days in Ruud van Nistelrooy.
“Back in 1999 we played against PSV in the Champions League and, unfortunately, I remember bringing him down at Ibrox and giving away a penalty. The referee was Pierluigi Collina and I was screaming at him for getting it wrong.
“By chance I caught up with him later that night at the Hilton hotel. I said to him, ‘To be fair, it was a penalty!’. After three points and a 4-1 victory I guess I had settled down by then! I’m sure there are a lot of Rangers supporters who will remember those games but hopefully it’s time for the current players to create some new positive memories by qualifying for the Champions League.”
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