Seize the day? Berra believe it

THE day is here. Hearts' Champions League destiny is in their own hands going into tonight's match with Aberdeen, for the club are one solitary victory away from inclusion in Europe's premier footballing tournament for the first time in their history.

All the ifs, the buts, the maybes will be rendered academic with three points this evening at Tynecastle, bringing the most tumultuous of league campaigns to a close, save for a prospective end-of-season party at Ibrox.

Everyone these days is familiar with that Champions League theme tune, a bowdlerisation of Handel's coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest.

Well, those well-kent violins will virtually be ringing in the ears of the Hearts players right now as they prepare to seize the day, or night as the case may be, as per the instructions of majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov.

Sunday's at-times mesmerising performance against an undermotivated Celtic side has paved the way for Hearts to effect their own finality against Aberdeen while avoiding a nerve-ridden final-day showdown for the Champions League place with Rangers in Glasgow.

For Christophe Berra, the club's 21-year-old defender, the current state of play marks notable change in his club's fortunes.

Berra's first appearance for Hearts came just two and a half years ago in a 2-1 defeat at Tannadice, at a juncture in the club's history when wage-bill slashing was the "in" phrase. Then-manager Craig Levein will testify to that, so the astronomical sums presently being peddled to some of the top earners in Gorgie denote the progress made under the stewardship of Romanov.

And challenging for Champions League spots helps too. "This club has changed so much," said Berra. "People get on Mr Romanov's back but you can't deny that he's done so much for Hearts. If he wasn't here we maybe wouldn't even be in the UEFA Cup. At the beginning of the season the UEFA Cup was our main aim, but now we have the chance to get into the Champions League.

"If we don't qualify for that there will be a lot of disappointed faces, but that shows how far we have come in seven or eight months. The club is on the up and becoming bigger all the time. Maybe in three or four years we will be challenging for the title.

"When I first came into the side we were happy to get third position and qualify for the UEFA Cup. Just to beat Celtic was an achievement but nowadays we want to beat Celtic and Rangers every week. A lot of clubs treat us as a third major club in Scotland alongside the Old Firm and they raise their game against us, so we are a big scalp."

Aberdeen, once rightly regarded as comparable in status to the Old Firm themselves, are fully aware of what winning at Tynecastle requires, after recording a 2-1 victory on their last visit there in February. Jimmy Calderwood's side travel to Edinburgh with sufficient motivation to re-enact that feat given that they still retain an outside chance of a UEFA Cup place if they can finish fourth in the SPL.

"We have to be professional and get on with the job," continued Berra. "This is a big time for the club and we have to concentrate and play to our capabilities, but Aberdeen will make it difficult."

Interim head coach Valdas Ivanauskas heads into the game mindful that it will be comparable in terms of importance to any he has encountered in either his playing or managerial career. He has some defensive concerns with slight doubts over the fitness of captain Steven Pressley and his weekend defensive partner Ibrahim Tall.

Andy Webster, who remains at loggerheads with Hearts over a proposed new contract, is definitely absent with an Achilles injury. "I have sympathy for Webby, he is a great player, but you really have to look after number one in a situation like this," said Berra, displaying the kind of single-minded attitude that could persuade Ivanauskas to deploy him from the start this evening.

"I'm disappointed I didn't start against Celtic because I had played against Celtic, Kilmarnock and Hibs previous to that and I think those were my best performances for the club. I don't know whether I was dropped, rested or what. Nobody explained anything but I haven't done myself any harm and I can only be confident in my own ability.

"Sometimes, like when we beat Kilmarnock, people are happy with me but then when we lost to Hibs they were saying that it was because we missed Webby and Elvis. If we had played like we did against Celtic we'd have beaten Hibs, but as a team you have good days and bad days. I don't think I've ever let the club down.

"Every game I've played in I've progressed. I've had a lot of different partners at centre-back and it can be a bit difficult when you don't have the understanding that Elvis and Webby have. I suppose that will benefit me as a player. I don't know what the club's thinking is - whether it's tactical, resting, rotation or what. Many big clubs favour squad rotation, maybe that's what they're trying to instil at Hearts."

Ivanauskas himself is possibly the most visibly focused man ever to darken the door of the Hearts manager's office, but the club could certainly use his intensity for every minute of tonight's 90. "This game is big, but not only for me," he said. "The team is ready. We must learn from last time Aberdeen were here because we lost, but if we get into the Champions League it will be my biggest ever personal achievement.

"On Sunday we gave a performance that I had been waiting for, and all of our supporters had been waiting for it too. The players showed exactly how they could play. We need them to play like that tonight."

Should they respond in kind, the present Hearts side will go down in history, if they haven't already.

The laser beam is poised over the Champions League anthem CD. All that is required is for someone to press the play button.

Taken from the Scotsman