Finalists bring welcome freshness to Hampden finale

Team details (probable)

They have added mightily to the gaiety of Scotland and to many other nations as well, to judge by the quite astounding global media interest in the meeting of Heart of Midlothian and Gretna in this afternoon's Tennent's Scottish Cup final at Hampden Park.

The very absence of those habitual finalists, Celtic and Rangers, with the tiresome sectarian baggage that trails in their wake and disfigures the streets around the national stadium whenever they collide, adds to the welcome freshness which today's contenders bring to the occasion.

These two clubs, as unalike as any opponents could be, represent all that used to be most attractive about the cup - the possibility of transformation through a combination of spirit and enterprise and luck of the draw, as opposed to the long forced march of a league campaign. Hearts, founded in 1872 and with a proud place in the Scottish game, were heading towards extinction - or at the very least the loss of their beloved Tynecastle home - two years ago.

At which point, enter Vladimir Romanov like a flushed Cossack bent on conquest. He would start, he said, by dismantling the Old Firm's comfortable duopoly and move on to Champions League triumph "within five years", while building Hearts a stadium to rival the best in Scotland.

A year's exposure to the Scottish game has seen Romanov - and his son, Roman, the Hearts chairman - modify their pronouncements. Winning the Champions League might now take 10 years and the reconstruction of Tynecastle (to a more modest, but still significant 25,000 capacity) has been postponed until the end of next season.

But despite Romanov's habit of scattering managers to the wind like confetti at a Gretna wedding, the Old Firm have indeed been split as Hearts muscled in on the Glasgow pair's assumed prerogative of qualifying for the Champions League. And now there is the chance - the overwhelming probability, according to bookies and Tynecastle fans - to annexe the first silverware of the Romanov era.

The spine of the team remains Scottish, with Craig Gordon in goal, Steven Pressley skippering from central defence and Paul Hartley running the show from midfield, as he did imperiously against Hibernian in the semi-final, orchestrating the comprehensive destruction of the other Edinburgh side.

"He's the one who really sets the trend of how they play and perform," said Rowan Alexander, the Gretna manager. "His workrate and energy and enthusiasm are terrific - it pleases me to see that in the Scottish game - and when he sets things off you can see the tempo of his team pick up. If we can't match that we could be really sore losers."

For their part, Hearts got a warning about trifling with lower-league opposition when they were given a bad fright by Partick Thistle at Tynecastle. Hearts were on the back foot in the later stages of a 2-1 victory. Valdas Ivanauskas, the Hearts coach, said: "We remember that game very well, but it was a quarter-final and there is always the feeling that if you win or draw there is another game. This is the final and the last day of the season and the players want to go on holiday with a smile on their faces.

"We have respect for Gretna. They won their league by hard work and we respect that, but this has been the easiest week's training we have had because the players so much want to win this cup and make the fans happy - believe that."

Hearts will surely produce the fiery start that has confounded so many opponents this season and Gretna, who include a few previous cup finalists in their ranks, will likely have to play a containing game to have a chance.

Theirs is the town famed for marriages conducted by the local blacksmith, to whom they might look for inspiration. For as George Orwell pointed out, the hammer may beat the anvil, but it is the anvil that wears out the hammer.

Team details (probable)

Hearts (4-4-2): Gordon; Neilson, Pressley, Tall, Fyssas; Cesnauskis, Hartley, Aguiar, Skacel; Jankauskas, Bednar.
Gretna (3-5-2): Main; Birch, Innes, Townsley; McGuffie, Tosh, Nicholls, O'Neil, Skelton; Grady, Deuchar.

Taken from telegraph.co.uk