Robbie Neilson: We're playing for Hearts, not Scottish football

Robbie Neilson's side are 2-1 up from their first leg meeting with Infonet Tallinn. Picture: Toby Williams

Repeated failures by Scottish sides on the continent mean our clubs are now ranked 25th out of UEFA’s 54 competing nations.

Scotland lost its automatic Champions League group stage slot in 2010 and the country’s entrants have been forced to jump over more and more hurdles to take their place alongside Europe’s biggest sides in recent years.

The lowly co-efficient saw the Jambos plunged back into action a month before the start of the Ladbrokes Premiership campaign after being paired with Estonians FC Infonet in the first qualifying round of the Europa League.

The Jambos travel to Tallinn ahead of Wednesday’s second leg with a 2-1 lead but even if they progress, they still face another three ties if they want to reach the lucrative round-robin phase.

Neilson knows it will take the combined efforts of his side and the Scots’ other European hopefuls Celtic, Aberdeen and Hibernian to improve the nation’s standing abroad.

But he insists his primary focus is on ensuring Hearts make their own strides forward.

“There’s not any pressure on us from the Scottish football side of it,” the Tynecastle head coach told Press Association Sport. “My job here is to look after Hearts.

“We managed to get a 2-1 win in the first leg and we will go over there and try to get through.

“If that helps Scottish football then great but ultimately it’s about helping Hearts progress as far as we can.”

Neilson admitted his rusty side were almost caught by surprise as they toiled through their first match of the new season.

They fell behind to a strike from Infonet forward Jegveni Harin but ground out a victory after Prince Buaben’s penalty was followed up by an own goal from the visitors’ defender Andrei Kalimullin.

However, Neilson insists Hearts have learned some valuable lesson about their opponents and expects his side to prevail.

He said: “You watch the videos but it is hard to tell what level these sides are at until you face them.

“Infonet are one of the most dominant teams in Estonia and win the majority of their games by three and four goals.

“But they played a different style against us at Tynecastle. They sat in and made it difficult.

“Now we’re going into this second leg we now know what we’re up against. We know the players, what they’re good at, what they’re not. So that gives us a chance to expose it.

“Might they revert back to their normal style? Possibly. The emphasis is now on them to come out. We’re taking a lead over there so they need to score. They will have to open up at some point and hopefully that means we can take advantage.

“We have to try to win the game though. We can’t take the risk of seeing out a nil-nil then lose a goal late. We have to go there and be positive.”

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