Stakes are sky-high for Hearts but down to earth for Bednar

IN 1998, Jim Jefferies guided Hearts to Scottish Cup victory against one half of the Old Firm and, by comparison with the money being thrown around at the capital club now, he and his players did so on paupers' pay packets. In Craig Levein's last full season as Hearts manager, the club finished the season on 68 points and, by finishing third in the league, he took them into the UEFA Cup qualifiers.

By the time he left, a couple of months into the new season, he had guided them through the preliminaries and seen them safely into the group stages.

Last term, the club finished on 74 points, albeit a place higher in the Premierleague, but having failed to make the most of the Champions League chance that offered them, they now have two games to prove that, despite all the adulation, the hero-worship and the songs in his honour, the Romanov revolution has not been all smoke and mirrors. Having bettered the Class of 1998, should the current crop of players now fail to emulate the Class of 2004, or go one step better, then the money laid out in wages by Vladimir Romanov will have been as well handed over to charity because for him it has always been about progress.

When the Lithuanian banker arrived he demanded a European trophy within three years. One year into that time span, at the start of this season, he refused to back down from that target. That gives his team this UEFA Cup campaign and next season to fulfil his ambition.

So, with home and away matches against Sparta Prague between the club and the group stages - lucrative in the money they can generate as well as the experience and opportunity to shine on the European platform - how important does head coach Valdas Ivanauskas consider the tie in the context of the entire season? "I think it's important," he said. "The Champions League stage we have lost now but we have the next challenge and we have to take the chances and it's important for the players and for their future and for the club for the future. So, it's very important."

Whether as the moneyman or Tynecastle's self-confessed team tinkerman, Romanov no longer has anyone else to blame, although the match officials may take the brunt of it should the Tynecastle club's progress be halted as a result of red cards born of stupidity or recklessness.

"It's not a step back," insisted Ivanauskas. "Champions League was another level but the UEFA Cup is still a European game and we saw Celtic do well to get to the final [in 2003] so for our team, for Hearts, it's important every year to play in Europe. It's very important. But it's experience. Every game is difficult. Scottish football, English football or European football. Every Europe game is difficult but very important."

And lessons have been learned from the brief Champions League excursion, according to the coach. "We saw a different football culture," said Ivanauskas. "A lot of Brazilian players and technique and also a big atmosphere in Athens. OK, we have an international squad, a big squad, but for a lot of the young players it was very difficult. Also, you see, every international game is a lesson for everybody, for players, for manager, for the club, for everybody. Every game is a lesson.

"I have in my head this game and it was very, very hard game, Hard in that atmosphere and we had to win and the pressure was very interesting but also I learned that our team can play in Europe and players also understand that, because before the game 90% of people said Hearts had no chance but I think we had big chances and the players now understand this."

But, if they are to have taken one warning from the doomed Champions League attempt, it is that while allegedly abiding by the same football rulebook the world over, in European football, the officials can be more stringent.

"It is a lesson," confessed a coach aware that he is under constant pressure to deliver. "Here in Scotland I don't have anything against our referees, they do very, very well but here in Scotland the game is hard. In Europe that is difficult because other referees don't understand.

"We need a quick change to play in Europe, mentally, and to [adapt to] the way they referee. I think it's not discipline. Yes, Julien [Brellier] may have been indisciplined but Neil McCann's red card in Scotland was never even a yellow, so that's difficult and a big lesson for everyone."

But, whether referees or bad fortune have conspired thus far, the fact is it is now do or the dream of appeasing Romanov and acquiescing to his calls for European greatness dies. But, ambition is only wishful thinking unless backed by deed. The fact is all the big wages, the upheaval and the bravado bought the club an extra six points between 2003/04 and 2005/06. And for those who talk about closing the gap on the Old Firm, in the year Jefferies delivered the Scottish Cup, his team finished just seven points shy of league champions Celtic, rather than 17 points.

Look at the achievements in black and white rather than through a maroon haze and it doesn't amount to much more than had been the case under the stewardship of those who went before. In such a context, the matches against Sparta Prague are not very important, they are much, much more than that.

Taken from the Scotsman