HEARTS & MINDS
Hampden will see psychological warfare and fired-up Jambos can win mental battle after watching Gers suffer so badly in Europa final
PSYCHOLOGICAL warfare. It’s where today’s Scottish Cup Final will be won and lost – and Hearts have a secret weapon in the mind games.
Emotions in football are underestimated. Big occasions, the adrenalin-pumped atmospheres, failure and success, it can all drain and emotionally ruin you.
Hampden will now be all about the mental battle between two teams who have had starkly different build-ups to this final.
As the Europa League Final defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt hits Rangers, it will be Hearts who will know what’s required to hit them where it hurts today.
It can go either way for Rangers, so it’s up to the Jambos to make sure they end the season with nothing.
If I was Hearts boss Robbie Neilson, all I’d be thinking about is making sure we start quickly, get at Rangers from the first whistle, hope there’s a bit of lag from Seville, and capitalize on that.
I would imagine there will be some sort of hangover from everything that’s happened to Gio van Bronckhorst and his players over the last few days.
Not just the final and the huge disappointment of losing on penalties but all of the peripheral things which can be so draining.
People will look at the final in isolation but as a footballer there is so much more to going into a game of that magnitude.
They are human beings, they will have been aware that half of the country appeared to have followed them over to Spain.
That expectation is a massive burden to carry and social media only adds to that pressure.
Players all use it and will see how crazy the fans were getting in their bid to get to Seville.
Look at what it meant to so many fans – more than 100.000 – who made the trip.
Some of my best mates travelled on a minibus and another flew to Seville via Bangkok! Nuts.
Now to have to face Hearts just three days later in a final is a ridiculous turnaround for them.
Everyone associated with Rangers has been on this huge emotional rollercoaster and that will now include the sad occasion of legendary kitman Jimmy Bell’s funeral which took place yesterday. The players paid their respects to Jimmy at the service after flying home from Spain and before readying themselves for Hampden. As much as I am desperate for Hearts to win the game, I actually feel sorry for Rangers given all they have had to take on board. There is no pause for them, it’s relentless being asked to play massive game after massive game and they won’t have had time to process what happened against Frankfurt before going in against Hearts for a game which is now their last chance to have some silverware to show for what’s been an astonishing season.
That would be mental, but it’s not Hearts’ problem.
As a player I’ve had back to back games similar to what’s been asked of Rangers – but in nowhere near the same circumstances.
And I’m the manager at Glenafton and we have just played three games in four days.
What’s different, though, is the mental aspect of all that Rangers have had to cope with. It’s not even about the football, it’s the emotional turmoil of carrying the hopes of all of their fans and falling short.
As a player you take that responsibility on board, Rangers could be sitting inside Hampden at 5.30 this afternoon without any silverware having been in two major cup finals within a week.
It’s all there for Hearts to seize the moment and I don’t believe the defeat to Rangers last weekend will have any bearing on this final.
That will already be out the window, that was a game nobody wanted to be involved in.
Now it’s all about Hampden and mind over matter – and Craig Gordon lifting the trophy.