Frustrated Fyssas has a score to settle at home

GENIAL, approachable and gentlemanly, Takis Fyssas does not anger easily.

Having been part of the Greek squad which won the European Championships two years ago, the right-back is experienced enough to know that once you lose self-control as a team, loss of the match invariably follows.

After Hearts' first leg of their Champions League third-round match against AEK Athens, however, Fyssas felt differently. With a fortnight between that 2-1 reverse and this evening's return leg, he could afford to let off steam to an extent. In fact, as he explained yesterday, he might even be able to channel his wrath and use it to motivate himself.

"We know we didn't have such a good result from the first game, but in football you cannot be negative," said Fyssas, who is back on what was home ground tonight, having been based at the Olympic Stadium with Panathinaikos for three years. "I always believe in myself and in the team, and I think we can show we are not so easy.

"There was a feeling in Greece when we finished the first game that Hearts are not a good team. I was angry with them, because they said some bad things about the team.

"I was very angry because they could not understand we had some players out with injuries. I was waiting for the people who know football to understand this."

Partly because of that feeling if disillusionment with his compatriots, Fyssas is not treating tonight's match as a special occasion, despite having looked forward for some time to playing in Greece again. "I was waiting for this moment for a long time, and I knew that maybe one time I would play some Greek team," he added.

"But I don't feel it's something important for me. It's so important for the team that I cannot leave myself to think about Greece and our national team. We go to a normal place. Okay, it will be Athens, it will be my place, but I think only of the game."

It has been a difficult start to the season for Hearts, with Fyssas being just one of the players who has underperformed. While not excusing his own form, though, the Greek full-back explained that he had expected it to be tough for the team.

"I knew this season was not going to be easy for Hearts, because we now have so many responsibilities. We have so many games and so many targets, and everyone expects more from us. The team has players who are not used to playing Wednesday, Sunday, Wednesday, Sunday. This is not easy for the players: I know this from Panathinaikos.

"So please have patience, I say to the fans. Be close to the team and believe in the team. Never feel that we are not giving everything."

One source of hope for Hearts is that the AEK players, rather than thinking only of the game, will drift off into dreams of Champions League glory, believing the job was done in Murrayfield. Even last weekend, the former Rangers midfielder Emerson was still insisting Hearts were a weak team. The AEK coach Lorenzo Serra Ferrer, however, said that, while his side would go into the match in a confident mood, they would be sure not to fall prey to over-confidence.

"Our intention is to carry on the match when we left off in Scotland," the Spanish coach said. "Still respecting Hearts, but with the intention of doing more than just defending our lead.

"We've got to keep up the same style of play, pressing the game and trying to play as far forward as possible, to try to regain possession as soon as possible. We can't allow ourselves to become over-confident. There's no lack of motivation for players at this level - the problem is in the domestic league.

"I'm not frightened, but I have maximum respect. We're approaching the job professionally, and as I've said we will not have an excess of over-confidence."

Nikolaos Lyberopoulos, the AEK captain whose late goal gave his team a 2-1 victory in Edinburgh, would concede only that his team were marginal favourites to go through to the group stages. "It will be a difficult game, and we will have to be focused from the first minute to last and forget about the first leg," Lyberopoulos said. "When we learned who our opponents would be in this round we thought we had a 50-50 chance. Now we are slight favourites, but Hearts are a good team and we will try to forget about the first leg."

So will Hearts. While they were hampered by the absence of key players, they were also markedly inferior to their opponents in terms of technical ability. That gulf in class does not vanish in a fortnight, and if they are to upset the odds they will need to play with the kind of passion and panache which characterised the best of their play last season. Passion, panache, and perhaps a little bit of Greek pride.

There may even be two Greeks in the visiting side tonight, as Hristos Karipidis, a makeshift midfielder at Murrayfield, could be preferred to Christophe Berra alongside Steven Pressley in central defence.

Otherwise, Hearts will be along familiar lines, with the two main choices for Valdas Ivanauskas, presuming he does start with Paul Hartley, is who to play on the left of midfield and up front.

The former is a choice between Saulius Mikoliunas and Neil McCann, neither of whom has been close to his best form in recent weeks. The decision up front depends on the fitness of Michal Pospisil, who will be preferred to Calum Elliot if he is deemed up to playing.

Elliot, nonetheless, is expected to play at some stage, which would be a strange reversal of fortunes for someone who is still set to go on loan for the season to another SPL club after being surplus to requirements at present. "Calum has a big chance to play if other strikers are not 100 per cent fit," Ivanauskas said. "I say [to him] you must forget discussions we have [about going on loan].

"We have big games coming up, then after we have discussion. He's a young boy and must understand the situation. Calum has good character, and in the future that will be very important."

Taken from the Scotsman