Hampden may be perfect send-off for Paulo Sergio

Published on Monday 21 May 2012 05:30

IF the Scottish Cup final turns out to have been Paulo Sergio’s final game as Hearts manager, it will be a premature but otherwise perfect end to a brief reign. The 44-year-old from Portugal got every aspect of his team’s 5-1 humiliation of Hibernian right: preparation, team selection, tactics – the lot.

With a five-week build-up to the first all-Edinburgh final since 1896, some verbal sniping was inevitable, and it was Hibs who did most of the firing. Hearts were running scared was the message from Easter Road. As favourites, defending a ten-match unbeaten run in the fixture, Sergio’s team had more to lose.

Victory for Hibs would give them the trophy for the first time since 1902: Hearts would be “merely” winning it again after a gap of six years. According to this green-tinted spin, the game would be more or less mundane for Hearts, but a special occasion for Hibs.

Sergio’s insistence that the match was no more or less important than any other appeared to some observers to lend substance to this analysis, but only because they failed to appreciate the point he was making. By saying that he prepared for every game with the same intensity and expected his players to do the same, he was stressing the kind of thorough, scientific approach to the game which he deems necessary. And at the same time, he was sending out the message that Hearts would aim to win by relying on the everyday virtues that had already taken them to three derby victories this season.

By any rational analysis, Hearts are the better team. Sergio therefore reasoned that doing anything radically different in the build-up to the final would be counter-productive. His team would simply apply their skills, steadily and patiently cranking up the pressure, just as they had done in their two wins at Tynecastle and one at Easter Road.

The presumption that patience might be needed turned out to be the only minor flaw in that plan. In January’s 3-1 away win and the 2-0 home victory which followed in March, Hibs had not been killed off until the final minutes: on Saturday, their resistance was dealt a mortal blow in the first half-hour, then put out of its misery within five minutes of the restart.

Sergio can hardly have bargained for such pitiful ineptitude from Hibs, but he nonetheless deserves considerable credit for getting his starting 11 spot-on and thus doing everything possible to hasten his opponents’ demise. The big debate in the previous two weeks had concerned the fitness of Craig Beattie and whether the striker would begin the game or come off the bench, but, once that issue was decided, everything else fell into place for Hearts.

As was shown when he came on for the final 15 minutes, Beattie’s hamstring strain had left him some way short of match fitness. At his best, Beattie can be devastating, but his inability to start was not a severe blow to Sergio, who went with Stephen Elliott as the sole striker and otherwise chose the same players and tactics he would have done with Beattie involved.

The defence has been a settled unit since Ryan McGowan took over at right-back from the injured Jamie Hamill, and Darren Barr, Ian Black and Rudi Skacel were also sure to start. Andrew Driver had done enough in recent weeks to book a place, leaving Suso Santana the most debatable selection – at least as far as the outside world was concerned.

For Sergio seems to have had no doubts. The little Spaniard had done enough to play his way into the team and, with him on the right wing and Driver on the left, Hearts would attack Hibs at their weakest points, forcing them out of shape. Driver made Matt Doherty look foolish, Suso tormented Pa Kujabi and, by getting the better of the full-backs, the two wingers pulled Hibs’ central defence out of shape.

In midfield, Ian Black again ruled the roost. Hibs had targeted the playmaker in previous derbies, at times using illegal methods, but on Saturday they stood off him. Even under pressure Black is capable of making crisp, telling passes. Leave him some space and he can time them to perfection.

Once Skacel made it 2-0 from a Black pass, Hearts were under pressure for little more than five minutes, the four which came between James McPake’s goal and half-time, and the minute or so at the start of the second half before Danny Grainger scored from the penalty spot. As he addressed his squad at half-time, Sergio again got his analysis completely correct.

“I said at half-time we have to go back out there like it was 0-0,” the manager explained. “It’s not comfortable at 2-1, so forget the first half – we have to score [again] to be safe.”

That methodical approach which served Hearts so well on Saturday could also be a factor in Sergio’s decision to move on. Already, with replacements required for those players who are leaving Tynecastle, he thinks he has been left little time to prepare for next season’s venture into the Europa League.

So even if Hearts owner Vladimir Romanov were to offer him a new contract today, he might decide not to bother. And lack of funds to rebuild the team – what he was referring to when he spoke about the nature of “the project” – will also surely influence his decision.

But if Sergio does leave, as now seems likely, he will still have a lasting place in the Tynecastle pantheon as the manager who led the club into the single biggest derby in their history – and emerged triumphant with one of the most comprehensive victories achieved against their arch-rivals.

Taken from the Scotsman