Ianis Hagi hails ‘special’ Old Firm goal after reviving his Rangers career

Ianis Hagi believes he personified the highs and lows of football when he fired in his “special” first goal against Celtic in Rangers’ stunning 3-0 win at Ibrox on Thursday.

The Romania midfielder was on loan at Spanish side Alaves last season and was playing for the Light Blues’ B team at the start of this campaign due to a contract issue which has been subsequently resolved.

The former Genk player, who has returned to become a key player for Philippe Clement’s side, was too ill to make the 2-2 draw against Motherwell on December 29, but was reinstated into an under-strength team which had several key defenders missing for the Old Firm fixture.

His famous father Gheorghe Hagi, formerly of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Romania, was among the crowd who watched the 26-year-old drive in from 25 yards after just seven minutes to set the relentless Gers on their way to a first win over the Parkhead side in eight meetings, with second-half goals from Robin Propper and substitute Danilo reducing Celtic’s lead at the top of the table to 11 points.

Hagi said: “It’s definitely special. It just shows, it’s not just in my case, just in general, football players around the world, young kids coming out from academies, football is not just all fun and it will all go perfect.

“It’s part of a football player’s career and as long as they respect football, they love what they do and they train 100 per cent no matter the situation, things will, somewhere or the other, it will sort out for them.

“I’m obviously an example of that recently but I’ve been through situations, even though I’m 26, it’s probably my 10th or 11th season at a senior level.

“I’ve been captain of the team when I was 16, 17, I’m one of the captains of the national team, so I’ve been through a lot and thankfully I’m mature enough to understand certain situations in football and the business part of it, so it’s just purely about people understanding that this is football and you have to respect it and love it and that football will definitely give you that.

“As I said, football gives you back and having my family, not just my dad, here with me for the past few days – a few days ago I wasn’t able to get out of bed, I was really sick, couldn’t help the team, and then just football kind of sorts things out.

“It was the right afternoon for me, for myself, for the team, everything clicked.

“Obviously personally I’m happy, but as a team, as a whole, we’re happy that we got the win.

“We had a consistent game because that’s what probably we’re working on the most right now.”

Hagi believes the win over Celtic will provide a boost going into Sunday’s game against Hibernian at Easter Road.

He said: “Every win helps you psychologically. Obviously winning an Old Firm game is totally different.

“But as I said, I think consistency for us is the main thing so we’re trying to do that and that’s the focus right now.

“I know it’s really important to win Old Firm games, but it’s in the past.

“We have a game in a few days and I think everybody knows that we have to be consistent and do that, as I said, every three days.”