PAULO SERGIO knows all about the road to Hampden.
Well, he knows his way to Vincent Lunny's office, anyway. The Hearts manager has been summoned by the Scottish Football Association's compliance officer twice already this season; once when the Portuguese's command of English proved good enough to say all the wrong things about referee Iain Brines following a Scottish Communities League Cup defeat by Ayr United, then again when he got altogether too agitated during a league match with Kilmarnock. That huff earned him a five-match touchline ban.
He has the chance to get beyond the SFA's naughty step tomorrow, though, when Hearts host St Mirren in the William Hill Scottish Cup; the winner progressing to a semi-final tie at Hampden, which might have sounded like an exciting prospect had Sergio not been so insouciant.
"Have I been there before? Just to speak to the SFA," deadpanned the Hearts manager. "It is a fantastic stadium, very nice, and it will be nice for us to be there. But we remember that to do that we have to beat St Mirren."
That no longer appears such a daunting task given what happened last weekend. Sergio remains a sympathetic observer to events at Rangers but that will have done little to dilute the satisfaction he derived from winning at Ibrox. The prosaic outcome will likely be the consolidation of a place in the top six in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League, but more significantly the Tynecastle side were able to arrest a run of five league games without a win.
Curiously, that barren spell had followed a rather proficient outing against St Mirren in January, when Hearts won 5-2. Sergio has since opined that the strain placed on his squad during a run of midweek fixtures had proven corrosive to their form – even if the player exodus predicted in January never materialised – while he was hardly helped by the ongoing dispute between goalkeeper Marian Kello and club hierarchy. His own relationship with the board has endured, though.
"The board have already said to me that they want me here next season," said Sergio, whose contract runs out in the summer. "I am very happy, I have always said this, I feel I belong to a fantastic club, with great supporters and a great history. If I am going to be [here] or not depends sometimes in details, but that is not important at this moment." A turnaround in form could scarcely have been timed any better given how open the Scottish Cup now appears; Rangers having been knocked out by Dundee United, who face Celtic in their quarter- final on Sunday. The Parkhead side represent a formidable obstacle given their somewhat inexorable form but neither is it implausible that another club could yet win the thing. Having lifted the Taça de Portugal [the Portuguese Cup] with Belenenses in 1988, Sergio can attest to that.
"I was very happy to be in a squad that beat Sporting, Porto and then Benfica in the final [in 1988]," he said. "It was a fantastic feeling. Two years ago, I managed another small team [Vitória de Guimarães] that went to the final against FC Porto and lost 1-0. Those kinds of things give you an amazing feeling that you never forget."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article