How Hearts coach Eva Olid aims to blend best of Scottish and Spanish football for women's league kick-off

Eva Olid is familiar enough with the women’s game in Scotland to know that there are, for now, several teams ahead of Hearts in the pecking order.

But looking to mesh her footballing philosophy with hard work and ambition, the new manager of Hearts’ women’s team believes that the Gorgie club can close the gap of the leading pack.

The UEFA pro licence coach has experience of coaching in her Spanish homeland as well as in the USA but jumped at the chance to head to Edinburgh after sampling the Scottish game a couple of years ago.

“Celtic have a Spanish coach and I came here to see how football works here; the methodology of Celtic and the teams who play football here in the Scottish league,” she explained ahead of the opening league match against Hamilton on Sunday.

Eva Olid is formally unveiled as the new manager of the Hearts Women's team. Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group

“I continued to follow it and when I knew that Hearts needed a coach, I saw this as a good challenge for me.

“I like to coach abroad. I was working in the United States but in America the football is physical and when I arrived there they found it strange that my style of play was all with the ball.

“They wanted to run, run, run, run. But I don’t want to just run. I see that as old, maybe what was happening 20 years ago. Now football is more about possession and what you do with the ball, it is more technical.”

Blending her coaching style with the industry and enthusiasm of the young Hearts squad, she says the target is to compete every week and finish as high as possible in the league.

But with others employing full-time players and clubs like Glasgow City continuing to dominate the league, Olid is not predicting overnight success.

“There are always some clubs that have more money, they have professionals that others don’t have and that is a big difference when you go to compete in a match.

“We have to work with our resources, so when we play the match, this big difference doesn’t exist. That means we need to work hard.

“When you don’t have all the resources that you want, you need to work hard, motivate the players and just work, work and work. That is the only way.”

A message from the Editor

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.