DADO PRSO has a view about pressure. It is the microscope through which you see a person's real character. "You see the man in these situations and what his comportment is. And at this club you need strong men. This is not a place for weakness."

His words are primarily directed at Alex McLeish and in praise of the fortitude the manager showed during those troubled first few weeks of the season when Rangers tumbled out of the Champions League and picked up just two wins in their first eight games, leaving them seven points adrift of Celtic.

But Prso says his comments could equally apply to his team-mates, who have come through a period of adversity, strengthened by the experience.

When you learn the striker's story it is clear similar circumstances have played a part in his own life, but more of that later.

First to football. The pressure is back on Rangers in the Uefa Cup following their 1-0 defeat to AZ Alkmaar on Thursday. Now a point may be required against Auxerre next week to ensure progression to the knock-out stages.

Prso believes Rangers can do it; that indeed they have the ability to make an impact in the competition's latter phase.

Itis a belief based on a resurgence in form which had, until the the trip to Holland, resulted in a run of 16 games featuring 15 wins and just one draw.

That took them to the top of the table last weekend - a situation which will be restored if they beat Inverness today.

"I've never experienced pressure anything like it before, " said the striker who wondered what he had walked into when the man who brought him to Glasgow seemed on the verge of the sack before September was out.

You would have thought the Croatian, having played in last year's Champions League final and Euro 2004, would have seen it all before. But he knew something was very different on the afternoon he played his first league match in Scotland.

"After that first game against Aberdeen I suddenly appreciated that 0-0 was not acceptable for this club. I tell you what I was thinking after that - I was telling myself I didn't know it would be this hard!

"In Monaco it didn't matter if we drew a game. Every team in France can draw or lose. It is not a disaster. But against Aberdeen I did not score, I got kicked in the ankles and I finished the game really f*****. And the referee tells me at the end, 'Welcome to Scotland'.

"The level here is higher than many in Europe think. They think this is not a good league, but they are wrong. Every match is hard whether you are playing Celtic, Hearts, Hibs or anyone. It is quicker and more physical."

Nine goals so far suggest the 30-year-old is getting to grips with his new environment, but he remains something of puzzle, even among the Rangers support.

Despite seven goals in the Champions League last season - including four in one game against Deportivo La Coruna - he has never been a prolific marksman at the top level. Nor does he play, even given his 6ft 2in frame, like a traditional targetman.

"I can fight with defenders physically, but I also like to play football when the ball is on the ground. Here I've had to adapt because you do not get the time to take the touches you can in France.

That is why I say there is much more to come from me. I'm learning how my friends play, all the new players are learning and you can see we're getting better."

Hehas contributed some vital goals for Rangers, including the strike that took the Uefa Cup tie against Maritimo into penalties, and a goal in each of the last two Old Firm games. Yet he can still look awkward in front of goal; the sitter he missed against Hearts last weekend being a case in point. "That miss in the first minute was unacceptable. It was impossible to miss and yet I missed it, " he admitted sheepishly.

"But it is OK because we end up winning the match. If we hadn't, I know people would have said, 'Oh Dado, you're a f****** idiot for missing that'.

"I was so happy when I thought Fernando [Ricksen] had scored just before half-time. I ran up to congratulate him and he told me it wasn't him who scored, it was an own goal. But I told him that didn't matter and I kissed him anyway."

His face creases into a broad smile at that anecdote; the livid scar above his right eyebrow arching upwards. He picked up that memento a month ago following a challenge with Aberdeen's Scott Severin. Eight stitches later and even his own manager was prompted to observe his striker looked like Frankenstein's monster.

Since then Prso has played with his forehead swathed in a bandage, although a mis-directed header last Sunday has convinced him that he should now dispense with its protective services. It is not his only scar. His face backs up his assertion that he is "not afraid of defenders".

His hands too are pock-marked with scabs and scars which attest to his ability to put in a hard shift. They look like the hands of a car mechanic, which they once were, for there was a period of his career when he didn't view football in the professional way he does now.

For all the talk of crisis and disaster in football, Prso is an individual who can draw on personal experiences which put such glib words in context. Born in Zadar, on the west coast of Croatia, he was a teenager when he moved from Hajduk Split to Pazinka just as the Balkans were consumed by conflict.

"I was a 17-year-old boy playing in the First Division while war went on around us. Sometimes we would go to stay in a hotel the night before a game and there would be no roof because of the bombs. That was football in Croatia at the time and when I had the possibility to go to France I took it."

He moved to Rouen, a troubled side in the lower reaches of French football.

It was an unsettling period. He spent his time in bars, smoked too much and gambled away too much of his meagre income on slot machines and roulette.

"Football was difficult for me back then. I was a young boy in a foreign country. I didn't speak the language and I had worries about what was going on back in my own country. My mind was on life and death in Croatia, not football."

There are two factors which transformed Prso's life. The first is Carole, the Frenchwoman he met and married during those difficult days. They now have two children, Nicoline, six, and Lorenzo, four, a daughter and son who speak French as their first language, but who their father ensured also learned Croatian.

"So they can talk to my mother and father in Croatia - I wanted them to know about the country their father came from, " explained Prso. "Now I'm glad they are learning Scottish too, " he joked.

"My wife, she pushed me back in the right direction in my career, " he went on. "I didn't have a good life in France before I met her, but after that we began to build something new together. I don't have words to explain how important she has been to me." The couple moved to the Riviera to stay with her family and Prso started to rebuild his career with Saint-Raphael, an amateur team in the fourth division.

Impressing in a friendly against neighbouring Monaco, he found himself being offered a trial. That was the second factor.

That was eight years ago, but it has hardly been plain sailing since then. He struggled to make an impact at Monaco initially, was loaned out for two seasons to Ajaccio and then suffered a serious knee injury.

But his perseverance has been rewarded in the last couple of seasons.

He was called up to the Croatian squad and became a regular with Didier Deschamps' Monaco. He is, by any measure, a late bloomer.

"Only when Monaco picked me up did football become serious for me again. Life changed, but even when I was alone and trying to find myself in France I always believed in my ability.

And I believe you grow stronger by going through difficult times."

He knows his words have echoes of what Rangers have gone through this season. Just over a week ago, when Grazer AK were beaten 3-0 at Ibrox, he offered his compatriot Mario Tokic some words of consolation at the final whistle as the Austrian team trudged off the pitch.

"He told me he was impressed with how we kept fighting throughout the game. To me, that is the big thing about Rangers now. Even in games where we don't play well, and we didn't in the first half against Grazer, we always continue to battle."

Prso, for one, is not a man to give up. And he believes he has found a club with similar characteristics.