Hearts put one foot in the next round

HEARTS 3
SIROKI BRIJEG 0

VALDAS Ivanauskas accepted his Hearts team have "a big chance" of progressing to the next stage of the Champions League after they beat Siroki Brijeg 3-0 in the first leg of their second-round qualifying tie at Murrayfield last night. The coach insisted, however, that he would take nothing for granted against opponents whom he expects to be more dangerous at home.

"We have a big chance to go to the next round," Ivanauskas said after seeing an own goal plus strikes from Ibrahim Tall and Roman Bednar give his team a handsome lead to take into next Wednesday's second leg in Bosnia-Herzegovina. "We don't think about losing.

"But every team in every game has a chance. We know how strong Siroki are at home."

The crowd of more than 28,000 was a record for Hearts at the national rugby stadium, and many of them voiced their displeasure at the end of the first 45 minutes, in which the home side looked tentative and uncoordinated. While the spectators were becoming impatient, however, Ivanauskas told his players they could not afford to do so.

"We had a lot of chances in the first half but didn't score," he continued. "I said to the players we needed to stay calm, and it was very important to maintain [a clean sheet]."

In cautioning against complacency, Ivanauskas again referred to Celtic's shock defeat by Artmedia Bratislava at the same stage of the competition last season. A result of more relevance, however, was Siroki's collapse in the first leg of their UEFA Cup tie against Basel last year, when they conceded four times in the last 20 minutes.

Although not of the same magnitude, their slump here was of a similar nature, and Hearts might even have punished them more in a couple of late scrambles. Their coach, Ivica Barbaric, accepted they had lost to the better team, but criticised the referee and his assistants for failing to notice alleged infringements by the home side.

"It's quite obvious that our team failed in the second half because Hearts were definitely a stronger and better team," Barbaric said. "But it's also obvious that they gained from mistakes.

"They're too strong to need help from referees. The first goal was scored after the home player [Robbie Neilson] stepped over the line at the throw-in."

"He's being a bit picky if he's complaining about that," the right-back Neilson said. "I don't know if I stepped over the line. If I did it, I'm not aware of it."

Hearts might have taken advantage of such hesitation by Tomislav Basic much earlier, as they spurned several opportunities in the early stages of the first half. Roman Bednar was as wasteful as anyone, but made amends late on by being alert enough to score his side's third from a slack back-pass. "I missed three or four chances and was getting angry with myself," the Czech striker said. "Then their defender gives me the ball. That's football. Sometimes I do anything but score."

For long enough last night that looked like it might be the case for the Hearts team as a whole, and at half-time such a convincing victory appeared implausible. Thanks to the patience preached by Ivanauskas, however, they prevailed in the end, and have surely done enough to make it through to the third and final qualifying round.

Taken from the Scotsman