Claudio Braga, Hearts' Portuguese forward and reigning PFA Scotland and SFWA Player of the Year, is beaming with excitement as he prepares to fulfill a lifelong dream: playing in the UEFA Champions League. Despite a heartbreaking end to last season—losing the Premiership title in the final minutes against Celtic—and a turbulent summer that saw manager Derek McInnes, striker Lawrence Shankland, and midfielder Cammy Devlin depart for Rangers, Braga refuses to let negativity dampen his spirits.
Champions League Qualifier Beckons
Braga will make his European debut in Tuesday's Champions League qualifying round tie against Sturm Graz in Austria. The 26-year-old, who has never played in a European competition at any level, described the opportunity as a career peak.
“I’m very excited, of course. I’ve been saying this a lot, it's any player's dream to play Champions League,” Braga said. “Even though it's qualifiers, I think everybody wants to play that kind of game against big teams in different stages. Just to talk about European games is something really good as a player and I feel all the team is in the same thinking as me. I think everybody's ready.”
He added: “I’ve dreamed of this since I was three or four! Every time I saw football, of course, you play football and you like to watch these kind of games more than anything.”
Reflecting on a ‘Crazy’ Season
Braga scored 17 goals last season as Hearts led the Premiership for over seven months before losing the title on the final day. Despite the gut-wrenching end, he insists the campaign was overwhelmingly positive.
“Of course, that last game kind of makes you think that it wasn't a good year. But when I start thinking deep, then I would pay anything to have a year as I had and the club had last year,” Braga explained. “It's kind of ungrateful if we look at that year and say it was a bad year. It was just a bad end, maybe, but it was a great year.”
He acknowledged the difficulty of losing key figures but urged fans to focus on the new arrivals. “Some important players go out but at the same time we had a lot of signings and I'm sure that a lot of the signings will help us a lot this year and hopefully make the fans forget—not in a bad way—but make them forget about the other players.”
New-Look Squad Gelling Quickly
Hearts have signed nine new players under new manager Wouter Vrancken, with the club's Jamestown Analytics tool identifying talents like Sabri Guendouz, Tom Renaud, and Amadou Ba-Sy. Ba-Sy made an instant impact, scoring twice in a 2-1 friendly win over Rayo Vallecano on Friday.
Braga praised the squad's adaptation: “It's good for Amadou. He had a tough start because he didn't come to Spain for pre-season with us because of personal problems. But he came in now and scored two goals so I think his confidence levels are pretty big.”
He added: “You could see against Rayo the quality on the pitch. It was a lot of guys with good technical abilities, good quality. Of course, it's different leagues that we came from. But once you get here, because there are so many new guys, you just need to adapt fast.”
Focus on Sturm Graz
With the Champions League qualifier looming, Braga is confident after the Rayo Vallecano win. “It was really good for us to get a win against a tough opponent that play in a big league. We felt comfortable, we were really aggressive in every part of the pitch and that's really important for us.”
