Claudio Braga insists Hearts have put the agony of last season's final-day title collapse at Celtic Park firmly behind them as they prepare to face the Hoops again.
The Jambos had led the Scottish Premiership for most of the campaign under Derek McInnes and needed only a point at Parkhead to be crowned champions. However, Daizen Maeda scored in the 87th minute and Callum Osmond netted with the final kick of the ball to seal a dramatic victory for Celtic, sparking a pitch invasion and sending Hearts home empty-handed.
Pain of title heartbreak behind them
Braga admitted the hurt from that May 16 defeat took weeks to process, but insists the squad cannot dwell on it now that Wouter Vrancken has taken over as manager, with a rebuilt team aiming to challenge Celtic and Rangers again.
“I feel we are very ready. I feel like, for the moment, no one is thinking about that,” the Portuguese midfielder said. “Because we can’t. It gets you emotional. Of course, emotions come to football and that’s not good when you get too emotional. We just need think: Okay, it’s a good opposition in the league right now and nothing to do with last year. We just need to go there and try to get the points this year.”
A completely different Hearts side
Reflecting on the aftermath of the defeat, Braga said: “I feel – and I believe Harry (Milne) feels the same – the first few weeks it hurt a lot. Because it was a full season fighting for that. But after that, you look back and feel like, oh, we did something really good. If you just focus on the positives about that, you don’t even remember that night.”
He added: “It’s a different team, different coach, different style, different players, different tactics different era. Almost everything is different. The starting players, compared to last year, maybe there are three or four guys. It’s a completely different Hearts. You can’t just think about what happened in 1999 or last year. It doesn’t really matter. We just focus on what happens this year and that’s it.”
Tough run ahead
Hearts are in the midst of a demanding spell domestically and in Europe. After facing Celtic, they travel to Turkey to take on Trabzonspor, with five matches before the Premier Sports Cup semi-final against Hibs.
Braga is relishing the challenge, saying: “If you look at the month of October, it’s a very tough month. But when you are a kid, you just dream about that. Playing big games every time and never drop the level, that’s just a dream. It’s a great positive to focus on, instead of thinking: Oh, these are tough opponents. Of course, they will be tough. But it’s also very good, it means you are among the best and that is good.”
Conference League disappointment
Braga also reflected on Hearts' failure to open their Conference League group stage campaign with a win, after Nordsjaelland scored late to deny them victory.
“We had more chances than just to lead 1-0, we could’ve gone to 2-0,” he said. “But of course they are a very good opponent, they played very good football in the second half when they had more of the ball. We knew they would be dangerous when they had the ball; that’s their game. We hoped that the goal wouldn’t come but they were a little bit on top of us in the last minutes.”
He added: “It is disappointing. I feel like we ran a lot in the second half. This style of game obligates you to run without the ball also, to make a lot of movements and with the ball to press high also. It’s kind of a hard style of game to do it so, of course, we’re going to get tired if we do it properly. I think we did. Then it was disappointing to suffer the goal when we did. I feel 1-0 was deserved and it could’ve been more.”
Braga also admitted he had a big chance just before half-time, saying: “When I shot straight away I thought: I just needed to chop inside and hit it with the right. But it’s one of these moments where you need to think in half a second.”
Hearts will hope to be on the right end of those fine margins in the coming games as they look to bounce back from their European disappointment.
