Paulo Sergio future remains up in the air

By TOM ENGLISH
Published on Sunday 20 May 2012 00:23

ON A day when his team answered every question that was put to them, Paul Sergio failed to come up with an answer of his own.

In the hour of his greatest triumph as a manager, Sergio declined to elaborate about his own future at Tynecastle, batting away enquiries about his contract, which is now at an end, and saying that he didn’t know if this was his last match in charge of the newly crowned, and emphatic, Scottish Cup champions.

“It’s not the moment to speak about my future,” he said in the aftermath of this humiliation of their Edinburgh rivals.

“I never spoke to [Hearts owner] Mr Romanov after the whistle. I’m here speaking to you and I’m afraid to go in the dressing room. It’s crazy in there. I already said for me it’s not winning the cup or not winning it which will make me stay or not. Maybe for other people that can make the difference but not for me. It’s a lot of things.”

Things like an offer of a new contract for a start. Vladimir Romanov was interviewed by BBC Radio Scotland yesterday and his reluctance to get drawn on the issue of his manager’s prospects was interesting.

The Hearts owner said he didn’t want to talk about his manager’s situation, before stressing that what he wanted to do is sell the club.

It certainly didn’t inspire confidence that Romanov was about to reward the Portuguese with a new deal, though that may change now that the owner has had a hell of a day out at Hampden.

“It was a great result, a great game for us and I’m very proud,” said Sergio.

“I feel happy. It’s great to see the joy of all our supporters. To have the chance to do this with my family in the stand is a great, great moment.”

The greatest? Yes, he said. “But this is different because I’m working outside of my country and that can make things harder with the language because I can’t express myself the same way I could in Portugal.

“I have to improve that. It gives a different flavour [to the day], a fantastic flavour.”

Sergio has had quite a season of it. When he was parachuted into the job in the wake of Jim Jefferies’ sacking nobody would have bet a cent on him being in his job come cup final day, not to mind being in his job and with a trophy by his side. Sergio has done a fine job in horrendously difficult circumstances, a fact recognised by Hearts coach Gary Locke.

“He’s been different class for the players this year and this tops it all off,” said Locke, who lifted the trophy as a player with Hearts in 1998.

“This is unbelievable, absolutely brilliant. I thought we played well.

“We were a wee bit slack with the Hibs goal but apart from that I thought we dominated the game,” he added.

“I think the sending off changed it but I thought it was a penalty and [Pa Kujabi had] already been booked so [referee Craig Thomson] had no option but to send him off but I thought we were really professional and played really well.”

That professionalism also pleased the manager. “I said at half-time we have to go back out there like it was 0-0,” said Sergio. “It’s not comfortable at 2-1 and if we gave Hibs the chance to get to 2-2 they would be more motivated. So forget the first half, we have to score to be safe.”

History will record that they scored and scored and scored again, even if their third goal was a lucky penalty courtesy of a tug that took place outside the box and a Suso Santana dive inside the box that fooled referee Craig Thomson.

On the day, Hearts won all their head-to-heads, none more so than Ian Black who was playing his last game for the club. On this form, Black is a terrific player and will be a grievous loss next season, even if his manager was reluctant to single him out for praise.

“Ian Black is one of the players of the season, but football is all about teamwork. I actually felt bad for the guys I had to leave out today. It’s very hard, this rule: you come to a final and you have to lose two places off the bench.

“The clubs are paying these professionals and I think we should change these rules.

“We had players who were fantastic all season who weren’t even on the bench and I understand their disappointment.

“I can speak about Adrian Mrowiec and David Templeton. The young guys have time, but these two all season they were important for us and we had to make a hard decision. I hope they have other chances to live it.”

The Jambos won’t have any problem on that score. They’ll live it, breathe it, sleep it, eat it and drink it for the rest of their days.

Taken from the Scotsman