Rangers boss Pedro Caixinha has backed new signing Fabio Cardoso to become a regular with the Portugal national team.

On Wednesday, the Glasgow giants announced that they had signed the centre-back on a three-year contract from Vitoria de Setubal as Caixinha continues to revamp his squad at Ibrox.

Cardoso joins the experienced Bruno Alves in moving to Scotland, and Caixinha says that the 23-year-old will only benefit from playing alongside the former Porto man.

The 46-year-old told the club's official website: "He is a player who everyone describes as having big potential to be one of the centre-halves of the future with the Portuguese national team. We believe in him and he can perform on the right or on the left which is good in a centre-half.

"We try to organise the centre-halves by thinking about them as a double and I think we have four very good centre-halves who can perform together or independently.

"Fabio is 23 so having an experienced player around like Bruno Alves is good, he is a player whose one main characteristic is leadership so Fabio will feel comfortable and grow and learn from him."

Caixinha is looking to build a team capable of challenging Celtic next season after only finishing in third place during the recent campaign.