Reaction to Hibs 3 Falkirk 0.mp4
UEFA Youth League action at Easter Road as home side trail 1-0 from first leg in Poland
Hibs great Darren McGregor admits he’ll use the lure of playing one of world football’s super clubs as a motivation to drive his young Hibs champions onto victory over Dynamo Kyiv. And the Scottish Cup-winning fan favourite is confident that his boys can overturn a 1-0 deficit in the second leg of their UEFA Youth League showdown with the Ukrainian title winners.
Hibs host Dynamo at Easter Road tomorrow night, with the winners of the two-legged tie going into Friday’s draw for the last 32. They’ll be joined by nine other title winners who have come through the domestic champions’ path.
And the prize for progress is a one-off home tie against one of the teams finishing between positions 7 and 16 in the Champions League path – youth teams awarded entry because their senior clubs are competing in Europe’s elite club competition. This could mean the Edinburgh club welcoming the best young players from PSG, Barcelona, Man City, Liverpool or Spurs – among other potential opponents - to the capital for a glamour tie in the capital next February.
McGregor, who admitted that his players had enjoyed being up against recognisable European aristocracy in the shape of Dynamo after progressing past Kosovan club FC 2 Korriku in their opening tie, said: “You’re always conscious of looking too far ahead; you take one game at a time as everybody talks about. But you'd be naive to think that the lads aren’t using that as a motivating factor.
“We’re well aware of the teams that lay in wait in the next round. So that can be - and it should be - used as a motivating factor.
“Obviously we’re fully focused on Kyiv and what we need to do to beat them. But you should use everything as leverage - and if potentially getting a glamour tie is somebody’s leverage, then you use that.
“Our lads have done obviously superbly well to afford ourselves this opportunity, so they deserve it. We knew what European football entailed.
“Sometimes you can get obscure teams like Korriku, who present a different challenge. But we knew we would get a big team as we went on. Obviously once you start progressing, the big teams start to become more frequent.”
Youngsters up against ‘physical’ opposition
McGregor, who will be without Adam Buckley for the second leg against Dynamo, feels like his team are right in the tie despite losing 1-0 in Poland, where Kyiv have been playing their home games because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the former centre-half saying: “I think we knew that it was a strong physical team that we were going to play against. But I think after we sort of figured them out, the boys took confidence from that.
“Listen, we always talk about playing the occasion, rather than playing the team. You're playing Dynamo Kyiv, who we're all aware are a big European team.
“You don't want that to be a factor in how we approach the game. They've got a couple of older lads; physically you would say they're a wee bit more developed.
“So we're very, very aware of their strengths on the counter-attack and how they are very direct and powerful. But looking at both teams I think we've given ourselves a really good chance.
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“Obviously there's one goal in it so nothing for our perspective really changed; we still need to win the game. After the 90 minutes of playing them I think we're well within the tie.
“And I think we can hunt them in certain areas. I think we've got good players.
“We’re representing Hibs but we’re also representing Scotland as champions of Scotland, so that's something the lads need to sort of take on their shoulders. They need to just embrace it, embrace the challenge.
“We’ve been given the opportunity to play at Easter Road again, which is a fantastic stadium with a fantastic atmosphere. Go and embrace that challenge.
“It's a mental challenge because it's obviously a European game and it's new to a lot of them. It's a physical challenge because they have three older players in their team – they’re 2006s - and then the technical and the tactical is a challenge as well.
“Because we know that they're a well-drilled team. They’re got good in possession and out of possession shape - and tactically they're very astute.
“And technically they're good players so I think we're getting tested on all fronts to get through. Hopefully they’ll grow from that - and hopefully we can budge them one step closer to the first team.”
Lewis Gillie was on the bench for the first team on Saturday, but no-one in the academy set-up at East Mains is pretending that there is a great clamour for change to David Gray’s squad at the moment, McGregor noting: “We've got guys that train with them every day. There are lads that if called upon could definitely step up.
“But we understand that the first team have got a very strong squad – and a a very experienced squad. So we're not naive enough to think that any of our lads could could jump in front of these guys right now.
“But come the end of the season our aspirations are to try and get a couple of them into the first team squad and hopefully get debuts for a couple. That shows that everybody's working together and we're all moving in the right direction.”
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