De Vries targets Europe again

YOU'VE got to love Dutch footballers not just for their skills but also for the way they never pull their punches when they speak. There's none of the platitudes of a British footballer, instead it's all plain talking and searing honesty.

Perhaps it's to do with the way they're schooled in competitive football from primary school age that their emotional bond always seems to be with their own ego first and the team second.

Mark de Vries seems to be no different, stoically explaining the transient nature of the modern game as the reason why he's not kept in touch with his old Hearts team-mates. "I've moved on, they'll probably move on and one day we'll meet again," he offered very matter-of-factly.

But de Vries is far from a man without emotion. He personally took Craig Levein's sacking by Leicester City to heart and a quick departing handshake at the training ground was never going to suffice for their three-and-a-half year relationship.

"I don't know how other players felt but I was really, really sad," said de Vries. "I didn't call him the same day because when something like that happens everybody will call that person and most things won't register. So I called him a couple of days later to just say I felt sorry and that I enjoyed working with him. I wanted him to understand what he'd done for me."

Although Levein believes De Vries performed an admirable job for him - he scored nine goals in the first half of this season - the 30-year-old striker failed to convince fans in Leicester the same way he did those in Gorgie.

Less than a week after Levein's departure, De Vries followed him out the exit door, accepting a six-month loan deal at Heerenveen and the chance to swap a relegation battle for the opportunity to play once more in the UEFA Cup.

Sitting in the supporters' bar at Heerenveen's impressive Abe Lenstra Stadion, De Vries was relaxed enough to joke about his departure from the Walkers Stadium. "Since I left Leicester they've won four in a row so maybe I was the weakest link after all!" he said.

It was, though, tongue-in-cheek from the player Hearts signed on a free from Dordrecht in the summer of 2002. This season De Vries was the primary target of the Leicester boo boys who believed Levein's five signings from north of the border were the reason for their fall into the relegation zone. It is a charge he rejected. "Somebody has to be blamed and it's easy to make it the big guy up front and give him some stick because he looks awkward. My style is awkward but it's effective, as long as you use me right it's effective."

It was certainly effective enough to score the last-minute winner in Leicester's 3-2 FA Cup win over Tottenham Hotspur at the beginning of January, the high water mark for De Vries' career at the Championship club.

But the 30-year-old admitted it was a long way behind a career highlight of the two goals he scored in a 2-2 draw against Braga in the UEFA Cup in September 2004, a result that sent Hearts through to the group stages of the tournament.

Yet, as if to live up to the truculent Dutch stereotype, just three months later De Vries was on his way out of Tynecastle after falling out with the club in a contract dispute. It is something that still rankles him. "Sometimes when I played I felt I didn't have that buzz as in the first two seasons and maybe that had to do with the way I was treated by the board at Hearts," he added. "I did my job but they didn't do theirs, they didn't give me the contract they promised me. I thought, 'What are they doing? Are they just playing a game with me?' I thought enough and I got a new challenge."

De Vries is now facing up to the fact that the Leicester challenge hasn't worked and is embarking on a new chapter at Heerenveen. They play in the UEFA Cup tonight but are expected to go out after Steaua Bucharest left Holland with a 3-1 victory.

However, with Heerenveen currently sixth in the Dutch Eredivisie, another more interesting prize looms. The teams finishing second to fifth will enter into a play-off for Holland's second Champions League place. Naturally for De Vries it's a more intriguing proposition than returning to see out the remaining two years of his Leicester contract.

"Me, playing Champions League next year, now that would be something wouldn't it?" he proffered, before being reminded that he could come up against Hearts in the qualifiers.

"That would be nice because I would like to play one more game in Edinburgh. I never had time to say goodbye because it came out of the blue.

"Who knows, maybe there will be a happy ending for us both."

Taken from the Scotsman