Draw offers eastern promise for Hearts

HEARTS supporters eagerly anticipating their club's maiden Champions League campaign were handed an immediate indication yesterday that it is not all about glamour in European football's elite club competition.

The draw for the second qualifying round of the tournament handed the Tynecastle club an assignment against the winners of the first qualifying round tie between Shakhtyor Soligorsk of Belarus and the Bosnia-Herzegovina side Siroki Brijeg.

No matter which of the two unheralded eastern European outfits triumphs, Hearts are in no danger of having to put up sold-out signs at Murrayfield for the first leg of their tie against them on 25 or 26 July.

Anyone presuming Hearts have been provided with safe passage into the third qualifying round, however, need only cast their minds back 12 months to be aware of the potential danger facing the Gorgie men. At the same stage of the Champions League last season, the name Artmedia Bratislava meant nothing to anyone in Scottish football but that changed dramatically when the Slovakian team eliminated Celtic from Europe at the first hurdle.

Siroki Brijeg, a small town of around 25,000 inhabitants in the Herzegovina region of their country, have seen their club win the domestic championship twice in the past three seasons under coach Ivica Barbaric, a former Yugoslavian international midfielder of some repute. Their first Champions League campaign in 2004-05 ended in disappointment when they lost on away goals to Neftchi Baku of Azerbaijan in the first qualifying round, but they did successfully negotiate the qualifying rounds of last season's UEFA Cup before being outclassed 6-0 on aggregate by Swiss side Basel in the first round.

The new season in Bosnia-Herzegovina does not start until 5 August, which may hand an advantage to Shakhtyor Soligorsk who are already 11 matches into the Belarussian championship which runs from April to November. Soligorsk, situated some 70 miles south of the country's capital Minsk, is known as the 'City of Salt' and Shakhtyor are sponsored by a potassium company. Until 1999, they had never finished higher than 11th in their domestic championship, but the arrival of Yuri Vergeichik as coach sparked an upturn in fortunes. The former international striker, whose playing career saw service in Germany and Belgium, guided them to a Belarus Cup triumph in 2004 and their first title win last year.

Valdas Ivanaskaus, the interim Hearts head coach, believes Shakhtyor are favourites to face Hearts. With Hearts owner Vladimir Romanov's club in Belarus, MTZ-Ripo Minsk, coached by national team manager Yuri Puntus, information on Shakhtyor will be easy to access. "I am happy with the draw," said Ivanauskas, "and Yuri Puntus will be able to tell us everything about Shakhtyor's players. If Shakhtyor can win the league in Belarus ahead of teams like Dinamo Minsk and MTZ-Ripo Minsk, then they must be a good team.

"I don't honestly know anything about Siroki but I do have many friends in Bosnian football I can ask about them. My preference is for Shakhtyor to win, though. We will prepare for both and watch the games between them."

Taken from the Scotsman