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Heart of Midlothian in Europe 2023/24


Alberto Spencer

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It's just nice to win a European game of football. Not to take away from Riga at all last year but this one definitely felt better.

Really wish they'd find a way of getting more games like for teams our levels playing each other in Europe as they really are great occasions. (Imagine like a league Davis/Ryder cup format, playing two leagues top 5s against each other) Hopefully see how it goes when the formats change next season but the fact that Aston Villa are marginally seeded for this last qualifying round is ludicrous.

 

Edited by the jambo-rocker
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1 hour ago, VincentGuerin said:

I mean, I can see where folk are coming from. Scottish teams generally do poorly in qualifiers and it's a step up on previous efforts in that regard.

Winning a tie against your seeding in Europe is always a good thing, and it is an important win for Hearts. We need a few more of these in the coming years to hopefully get to the point where we'll be seeded if we find ourselves playing in these rounds.

With the long list of Scottish calamities in Europe of losing to all kinds of horrendous sides, I can see why people are excited. Knocking out two Swiss sides and a Norwegian team is better than how things have gone before.

As I said though, Rosenborg were poor. We've lost to worse, though. This is the result we should have had last season against Zurich, and I think would have had if Grant hadn't got sent off. They were better than Rosenbotg, and Hearts played them off the park for most of the game at Tynecastle.

Aye that’s fair, it was an excellent night all round. Didn’t mean to sound as though I was dismissing the result - it was magnificent - just that I wouldn’t class it as a major scalp. Agree about the Zurich game too. 

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So I looked at PAOK's form in Europe
They had a cracking run to the conference league s two seasons ago beating two danish sides and then Gent in the round of 16 before finally bowing out against Marseilles in the quarter finals

However most of the side that beat Gent are no longer there so this isn't quite as scary as the first sentence made it sound
 

#10 Chuba Akpom (now at Ajax)

#21 Diego Biseswar (retired)
#51 Theocharis Tsingaras (22)
#22 Stefan Schwab (32)
#6 Douglas Augusto (FC Nantes)
#10 Thomas Murg (28)

#20 Vieirinha Captain (37 effectively retired)
#15 José Crespo (now at APOEL Nicosia)
#15 Sverrir Ingi Ingason (now at FC Midtjylland)
#19 Lefteris Lyratzis (23)

#1 Alexandros Paschalakis (now at Olympiacos)

On the other hand
Last Season PAOK went out in the 2nd qualifier to Levski Sofia, who went out to a team from malta, who lost the playoff to Partizan Belgrade

 

Edited by topcat(The most tip top)
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2 hours ago, the jambo-rocker said:

It's just nice to win a European game of football. Not to take away from Riga at all last year but this one definitely felt better.

Really wish they'd find a way of getting more games like for teams our levels playing each other in Europe as they really are great occasions. (Imagine like a league Davis/Ryder cup format, playing two leagues top 5s against each other) Hopefully see how it goes when the formats change next season but the fact that Aston Villa are marginally seeded for this last qualifying round is ludicrous.

 

Arguably the conference league would be more fun if the real big time leagues didn't have any teams involved

It would be like a continent wide version of the  Scottish Challenge Cup

 

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26 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

Arguably the conference league would be more fun if the real big time leagues didn't have any teams involved

It would be like a continent wide version of the  Scottish Challenge Cup

 

It's quite disappointing that the top five leagues are involved in it. They skew a competition that should really just be for the rest of us.

How the f**k are Villa not going to win it this year, for example?

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1 hour ago, VincentGuerin said:

It's quite disappointing that the top five leagues are involved in it. They skew a competition that should really just be for the rest of us.

How the f**k are Villa not going to win it this year, for example?

Ironically fans of the likes of Villa and West Ham feel it's a chance for them to win a trophy as they don't have to beat a Man City....

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Interesting to check out the Rosenborg forum to get the other side's view on the game last night.

Main take aways from a Google Translate trawl through the match thread is that Shankland is our best player, both Hearts and RBK are rubbish, and their number 17 really should have been sent off.

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6 hours ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

Arguably the conference league would be more fun if the real big time leagues didn't have any teams involved

It would be like a continent wide version of the  Scottish Challenge Cup

 

It would probably be the 2nd most entertaining thing to watch after Scottish football, naturally.

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On 17/08/2023 at 23:11, Tony Wonder said:

That was excellent. End to end, nervy at times but really enjoyable. We looked very good going forward at times but ropey at the back. Good to show a set of balls after going behind though. From 3-1 down to winning 4-3, a great night.

PAOK will be heavy favourites but we have a punchers chance.

I've never heard that before; marvellous phrase and very apt

 

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On 17/08/2023 at 23:24, Tony Wonder said:

Thought Kent ended up having a good game but his opening 10 minutes is up there with the worst I've seen from a Hearts player.

Just seen the goals back, not sure why Clark is getting stick for the opener tbh. Yeah it's easy to have a dig because it's went through him but it's a great initial save and then it's fired in at him as he's getting back up. He's entitled to expect his defence to try and block the shot.

That's fair but I think Gordon stops 1 or 2 of their goals in that tie

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23 minutes ago, Craigie Jambo said:

That's fair but I think Gordon stops 1 or 2 of their goals in that tie

Yeah don't disagree but quite simply that's because he's better than Clark. Don't think it's an error on his part personally.

Edited by Tony Wonder
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10 hours ago, The Master said:

I’m sure I heard Richard Gordon say on Sportsound yesterday that Thursday’s first leg is live on BBC Scotland. But nothing on the EPG yet so maybe he just jumped the gun. 

It's since been confirmed that they are showing the first leg live.

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Looking forward to this but not massively optimistic, really. In the last couple of years we've been a team that's generally good at beating worse sides, but is basically no use against better sides. You'd have hoped last year's European experiences could have stood us in good stead, but injuries meant there was too much upheaval to build any sort of confidence or useful rhythm for these types of matches.

Midfield feels like a bit of an issue with Beni and Haring not ready/unavailable and Nieuwenhof not having featured much yet. No shame on him, but I don't think Denholm showed enough last week to start and there were a few moments where he might have cost us. Kind of expecting Sibbick to start in there for his pace and ball-winning abilities, but there isn't much "football" in a Devlin and Sibbick midfield unless Cammy is really on his game. If he wasn't clearly on his way out, I'd actually have liked to see Grant start as he's comfortable on the ball and I think his better performances for us have came in Europe.

I get the feeling it might be a nervy start tomorrow. We need to make it through that period to give ourselves a chance as we definitely can't afford to start like either of the Rosenborg games.

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