Steven Naismith: I'm jealous of Scotland but Hearts just had to take priority

Steven Naismith says he will look on with envy when Scotland are at next summer’s European Championships but says taking over as manager of Hearts and relinquishing his national team commitments was the right choice.

Naismith was part of the Scotland set-up until he was given the Hearts managerial job on a permanent basis this summer. The 37-year-old had to step away from his role with Steve Clarke’s coaching team as a result and has watched on from afar as they secured their place at Euro 2024 with two qualifiers to spare. However, Naismith knows he made the right choice.

“There’s jealousy for sure that I’m not going to be part of it,” said Naismith, who won 51 caps for his country but never played at a major finals. “But that was in my thought process when this opportunity came around. Nothing ever happens on time in football. Loads of moves that I’ve made have happened at the wrong time for one reason or another, whether that be professionally, family life. But this was too good an opportunity for me to turn down.

"What we can do here was massive but what I lose out on is being part of a Euros squad and still learning under a great manager and some really good coaches. There’s definitely a jealousy that Mozz [James Morrison, his replacement] has jumped in and he’s got into a Euros squad. But I’m delighted all round because I knew they could do it. I had the belief that the manager had that they could do it – not maybe as well as they eventually did it. But they made light work of it and it’s brilliant.”

Steven Naismith worked as part of the Scotland set-up alongside manager Steve Clarke before taking on the Hearts job.

Naismith was asked if he had ever given consideration to combining the roles. “No,” was the definitive answer. “This is far too big a club to be able to do that. There’s too much going on and if you really want to try and build something long-term and develop young players then your full focus needs to be on Hearts. That’s the decision I came to. I would not have even considered combining them.”

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