It didn’t quite pan out the way he had hoped, either on Saturday, or in his team’s collective season. But for Abdallah Sima, his loan move to Rangers has given him more than he could have dreamed – a feeling of being at home.
The loanee has impressed throughout his stay in Glasgow, and had it not been for some bad luck with injuries, would surely have been in the mix when the end of season individual awards were being dished out.
Had it not been for VAR spotting a push on Joe Hart by teammate Nicolas Raskin on Saturday, he might well have been heading back to Brighton as the scorer of the winning goal in a Scottish Cup final as well.
That was not to be, but Sima doesn’t want the ‘what ifs’ from his time at Ibrox to linger for too long. And certainly not as long as the warm memories he will take with him back to England’s south coast.
Indeed, there may well be scope to create more. Sima isn’t ruling out the possibility of returning to Rangers to help bolster Philippe Clement’s attempt at building a squad capable of knocking Celtic off their Premiership winning perch next season.
While he admits that the decision may not be his to make, if the choice is presented to him, he is likely to jump at the chance.
“It’s not up to me,” Sima said.
“I always say I feel at home here and I’m happy to be here. I’ve always loved to give everything for this shirt.
“As I say, this place feels like home and I feel everyone wants to stay in a place that feels like home, so we will see in the next few weeks.
“I think I can be proud of my season and happy with what I’ve contributed. I wanted to do more but of course I had a bad moment with my injury, which ruled me out for a long time. But I’m always looking forward and I’m not looking back.
“I really wanted to win the cup for the club, for my team-mates and I think we deserved to do that, to be honest.
“But it wasn’t enough and now we need to look forward to next season.”
The possibility of a potential return for Sima may provide some solace to Rangers supporters over those next few weeks, as they ponder the scale of the rebuild that Clement will look to undertake as he tries to finally put them back where they feel they belong at the top of the Scottish game.
The wounds from yet another close call at the weekend may sting for a little while yet though, with Sima still smarting from the way in which his big Hampden moment was ripped away from him.
“It’s tough when you score and you think you have given hope to the team - then have it taken away,” he said.
“I just feel so much frustration that it was disallowed. But this happens in football, and you just have to deal with it.
“I’m here to be that player [who provides the big moments]. We’ve had some big chances in some big games like we did on Saturday, and I always want to give everything for the team. But unfortunately, on Saturday it wasn’t enough.
“We feel disappointed about the final result. We wanted to win this game so badly. We knew it was an important match for us a team, for our fans, for the club.
“So, we’re just so disappointed we couldn’t get the result we wanted.”
