Michael Beale may have been kept waiting a little bit longer than he would have wanted to get Cyriel Dessers in the doors of Auchenhowie.
But then again, Dessers has made a habit of leaving the best till last in a career which, not all that long ago, seemed destined to take him to the top of the European game. During a season long loan deal with Feyenoord, in 2021/22, the Belgian born striker ended the inaugural Conference League campaign as the top scorer in the entire competition - with a ten goal haul which pipped Roma’s talisman Tammy Abraham by one.
And, during that blistering campaign, he even earned himself the nickname of Mr 90+2 because he came off the bench to bag three winning goals in the space of a week, all in the same minute of injury time. Some Feyenoord fans even got the name and number printed on the back of their replica shirts as Dessers quickly secured cult hero status at De Kuip.
He lapped the adulation up. For a while. But Dessers soon tired of its quirkiness. Rather, he considers himself to be a very serious striker. And that’s exactly what Beale will be welcoming inside the building this week when Dessers finally arrives in Glasgow to undergo a medical and then put pen to paper on what’s understood to be a four year contract for a fee of around £4m.
As Dessers said himself: “Cult footballers for me are players who were actually not that good but played their way into the hearts of the fans. In the beginning, it was funny. I often filled in as a substitute and scored a couple of times in the 92nd minute. So I understand it. But I think by now I have shown more than that. If you can shoot a team like Feyenoord to the final of a European Cup, the ‘cult’ thing is a bit off.”
And yet, so popular did he become during that season long loan deal in Rotterdam that Feyenoord’s fans didn’t just have his name plastered across their tops, they clubbed together to give them the shirts off their backs in a bid to keep him at the club for longer. A crowdfunder was raised with the target of cobbling together enough cash to buy the striker outright from parent club Genk. But that plan was scuppered last summer when Cremonese piled in with a big money offer to take him to Serie A.
Dessers left Feyenoord, having struggled to hold down a regular starting place under Arne Slot, in a two way battle for one jersey with the smaller, more mobile, Bryan Lissers. And yet his blistering goal-scoring form in the Conference League convinced many that the Nigerian international was getting the rough end of the stick.
Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf wrote: “Even across all competitions, Dessers currently looks like the best option for Slot’s starting line-up. The Leuven native scored almost as many as Linssen and needed fewer minutes. In addition, he shoots at goal more often, has more ball contacts in the enemy sixteen and wins.”
And the man himself clearly agreed. Dessers said: “I think I’m an all-round striker. Many strikers are really tall, or really fast, or have other extremes. I don’t have that. I can play with my back towards the goal, I can hold the ball up, I can run deep towards the goal, I can score with my left and right foot. When I’m in front of the goal, I don’t have any doubts about scoring with my left foot, for example.
“I’ve also scored some nice goals with my head this season, so I think I am quite an all-round player without being extreme in anything. But I can always do better, of course, and that’s something I work on very hard every day.”
And yet his exploits in Europe kept on coming throughout that run - which would eventually see Feyenoord losing 1-0 to Jose Mourinho’s Roma in the final - and continued to raise eyebrows across the continent. Dessers said: “It’s a fantastic feeling. To get into double figures as a striker is something you work towards in pre-season.
“But when you can do that in a European competition, that’s very special. I realise it puts me in a special list of players for this season, not just at the European level but also for the club. At Feyenoord, I am moving up the list, which is very rewarding. It’s because of the team that I can be in that position and score those goals. I don’t just mean assists or passes I get from the team but also defensive work.
“We want to press so high, which means our defenders are often in one-on-one situations or play with a lot of space behind. I might be the one cheering after the goal, but it really is the entire team that makes that possible, as clichéd as that may sound. I have to be the focal point and be in the right place.”
And yet, despite struggling to rediscover that form as Cremonese dropped out of Serie A last season, the deep bond Dessers forged with the fans in Rotterdam seems likely to be recreated in Glasgow.
He’s a bit of a people pleaser, you see. Speaking before that final he said: "I grew up watching the Eredivisie and, whenever I saw Feyenoord play, I always thought, ‘Wow, that’s an amazing stadium. I would like to play there sometime’.
“And the fans, they’re one of a kind. They definitely live up to their reputation. Already from the start, I had this feeling we might have a connection. They are so loving, and I love them back, so it goes both ways.
“To have such a connection with the fans at a club like Feyenoord, I will never forget that when I look back on my career later. The Feyenoord fans really wanted to keep me here for another season, so they started a crowdfunding campaign. We will have to wait to see if they succeed.”
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