RANGERS FACE MINI-ESTA
Cochrane given moniker by Goncalves
ONE of his senior team-mates has already bestowed a pretty impressive training-ground nickname on Harry Cochrane.
Well, if you’re going to introduce the Next Big Thing in Scottish football to the concept of ‘banter’, why not aim high?
Sure, start calling him Miniesta, after Andres Iniesta no less, one of the most influential midfielders of his generation. A player who has won everything up to and including the Champions League, European Championships and World Cup. After all, it’s just a bit of fun… sort of.
With 16-year-old Cochrane lined up to start in front of the biggest Hearts ‘home’ crowd in a generation, there are obvious questions — posed by head coach and director of football Craig Levein himself — about whether it’s fair to rely on even a well-behaved boy playing the role of Messiah.
What no one doubts is that the kid has ability to burn. And a desire to show his talents in a Murrayfield showdown where the home support will be almost matched by a huge number of travelling Rangers fans; a crowd of nearly 35,000 is anticipated.
Portuguese forward Esmael Goncalves, a well-travelled ‘old head’ who has seen a few promising talents emerge during a career covering spells in Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and now a second stint in Scotland, is definitely convinced of Cochrane’s potential.
‘I joke with him in training — and I call him Miniesta,’ revealed Goncalves.
‘Now, I can’t compare him to Iniesta because I never saw him at Harry’s age! I think Harry likes it. We joke about it. But I do think he is very good.
‘I like him a lot; you can see in training and in games he has a lot of quality.
‘I think he has a brilliant future, this kid. He is very good technically and tactically.
‘Of course he is young and he needs to improve on a lot of things — and he’ll get that through experience. But I can see him going far.’
Levein admitted he should have started Cochrane in Tuesday night’s derby loss at Easter Road, a conviction reached on the evidence of the midfielder’s performance as a second-half sub.
With Don Cowie and Arnaud Djoum both still out injured, even an inexperienced rookie may be a better option than one or two of the place-holders who started in midweek.
Overall, Hearts and Levein have a number of issues to contend with in almost every area of the park. Even against a Rangers team once again in crisis, the unfinished elements of their squad risk being exposed in today’s lunchtime meeting.
Goncalves admits that a period of adjustment has been required following the dismissal of Ian Cathro, the interim reign of Jon Daly and now the new regime put in place by Levein.
‘We are in a moment of transition, things are changing — and this takes time,’ said the forward. ‘It can’t just happen. We need time to improve and things are improving. We can see it in training.
‘But in the games it’s different, it requires a lot of time.’
Invited to explain what he has changed about his own game, Goncalves said: ‘It’s a different style from Cathro, so we’re all being asked to do different things to what he asked us.
‘It takes time to get that in our minds and we have had a lot of injured players, so we have had to play some young lads.
‘For me, it hasn’t been a big change because I used to play like this before. It is just the tactics are different.
‘I have been enjoying it. It has been good, so it’s no problem for me.’
Goncalves made his Hearts debut in a blistering demolition of Rangers at Tynecastle last season. Back when Cathro was actually showing some promise, the new signing imagined life was going to be all victories and bouquets from there on in.
‘Yeah, it was an amazing first game for the club, even if I didn’t score,’ he said.
‘The team did well. It was a very good performance.
‘It would be good to score this weekend but the most important thing is the three points. If I can score, it would be amazing, personally.
‘But the team really needs the three points — and we’re going to do all we can to get them.’