Hearts suffer major failure as Brellier and McCann see red

Ewan Murray in Athens
Thursday August 24, 2006
The Guardian

Heart of Midlothian's hopes of reaching the Champions League proper ended in ignominious failure last night when they had two players sent off and conceded three late goals. So Hearts's owner, Vladimir Romanov, will have to wait at least another year before realising his dream of seeing his team compete in the group phase of the Champions League.

In a controversial qualifying match Julien Brellier was sent off in first half for a second bookable offence after having shown a yellow card earlier for wearing jewellery - an earring - on the field of play. With the score still goalless Hearts were reduced to nine men in the 63rd minute for a foul. With 11 minutes left Julio Cesar opened the scoring with a penalty. He added a second in the last minute in between which and Nikos Lyberopoulos headed the second.

As before the first leg, Hearts' preparations were disrupted injury troubles, particularly in attack. They had to field the 18-year-old Jamie Mole as a lone striker, who had made only one previous start. The influential midfielder Paul Hartley was considered fit enough to make his first start of the season and a heavy onus was therefore placed on the Scotland international to provide a goal threat from midfield.

Romanov's hopes of reaching the Champions League proper had been dealt a heavy blow in the first leg at Murrayfield where AEK have a slick and highly impressive performance, although Hearts led 1-0 for 89 minutes before two late goals earned a the Greeks a victory that their earlier profligacy had out in doubt.

Yet it was Hearts who missed the most glaring chances of the opening stages here, as Mole found himself one-on-one with the goalkeeper Dionisis Chiotis but failed to compose himself enough to find the net. Hearts' best hopes of an unlikely progression, as conceded by Ivanauskas before kick-off, was in the event of complacency by AEK and such an issue was to the fore as only Chiotis's fine save from a 26th minute Hartley point-blank header kept the scores level.

The bizarre circumstances regarding Brellier's earlier booking came to the fore three minutes later, as the referee Iouri Baskakov issued a second yellow card for the Frenchman's apparently innocuous challenge aerial on Traianos Dellas.

Hearts battled bravely in the second period. But the loss of Brellier and McCann proved fatal, the latter sent off after 63 minutes for a two-footed challenge on Vladimir Ivic, and AEK took the lead through Cesar after Deividas Cesnauskis tripped Vasilis Lakis. Lyberopulos's close-range header intensified Hearts agony, before Cesar waltzed through for a third.

Taken from the Guardian/Observer