The Light Blues will welcome the Italian side to Glasgow on Wednesday and the B team boss reflected on the squad’s first group stage match of their European campaign last week against Ajax at the De Toekomst.
Speaking at yesterday’s press conference ahead of their first home match in the tournament, he said: "It’s a nice place to go and play football. From our point of view to look at the game in isolation, the biggest thing we spoke to the players is to go and believe and back ourselves.
"We know that they’re a good team and have good players, they’ve been renowned for producing players for a number of years, but I think we had to believe in ourselves at the same time. In the second half, it was almost like the shackles had come off and he had a right go at it, the outset for this game is to absolutely believe in ourselves a bit more.
"We look at the Ajax game with some information on them, the difference this time is that we’ve managed to get eyes onto the Napoli and Liverpool game. We looked at how they played and how we can set up to defend that, but more importantly how we set ourselves up to go and try and make good of the possession we have and exploit the spaces we create.
"I’ve always said before, the footage is great to give you an indication of what they might look like, but it doesn’t give you a guarantee. The way that we would use that footage is to try and make it about us, we always try and turn it round to us and I always think it’s good for the players to try and have a bit of a snapshot of what they might come up against – you have to adapt, we did adapt in the Ajax game. It’s good for the players to recognise that sometimes we might have a plan and that might have to change."
McCallum added that the competition will always provide key learning opportunities for the young Gers as they look to develop their individual game toward senior football.
He continued: "The ‘Best v Best’ philosophy that we’ve had in recent years has been important to us, but I think that this is a bit different because it’s more of a competitive environment against top sides. It’s finding a way to perform and to try and get a positive result at the end of it and maybe find an opportunity to get into the knockout stages of the competition.
"Selecting any players for these competitions are sometimes a bit easier than others because they’re at different stages of their journeys, but we have U18 players who are pushing to get closer to the squad if not the starting team. Any players who aren’t involved may naturally feel a bit disappointed, but I hope what they will see is the opportunities that may open up if they continue to perform at the levels that they can.
"We have the same message for the B team lads where they will try and aspire to get to the first team and you never know when those doors open, all they can do is continue to push their levels for when their opportunity does come, they take it."
TICKETS: Priced at £7 for adults and £3 for concessions and can be purchased HERE to support the team in the UEFA Youth League.
SUBSCRIBE: Get closer to your club with a RangersTV subscription HERE
B TEAM SEASON TICKET: Buy your 2022/23 B Team Season Ticket and earn 25 MyGers points HERE
ㅤ
ㅤ