Hearts head coach Wouter Vrancken praised his players after watching them go toe-to-toe in a battling 1-1 draw with Portuguese giants Benfica.
The result restored some European pride following last week’s 6-1 Europa League third qualifying round first-leg defeat in Lisbon. Tomas Magnusson fired in a 77th-minute strike, but the lead lasted less than a minute after Dodi Lukebakio swept in an equaliser to wrap up a 7-2 aggregate victory.
Hearts will now drop into the Conference League, where they will face Rapid Vienna for a place in the group section, and Vrancken insists his players should be boosted by the display they delivered against Benfica.
Vrancken, who also saw Calvin Miller have a goal disallowed for offside, said: “I’m very happy. We showed some guts on the ball today which we didn’t in Benfica, especially the first half.
"You have to take your moments to keep the ball and to give yourself some air and to do something good with the ball, because otherwise the opposition comes back fast.
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“So we did it today, and we showed a good performance, and out of possession the togetherness was really, really big. The effort towards each other to make a result was good. I think they deserved it (the win) with the performance they gave on the pitch today.
“It was a nice goal from Tomas, and then it’s very important always when you score that three, four, five minutes after this moment are the most dangerous moments.
“We have to learn from these moments, but we have to see that the overall performance today was really good.”
Benfica head coach Marco Silva said: “It was a good first half from ourselves; we controlled the game very well and had chances to be leading at half-time. We didn’t score; we should have been more aggressive, and we created enough to score.
“The second half was different, not so commanding or aggressive without the ball, and the game was more balanced, but we did our job, and we’re in the next round.”
