Wallace is still bitter at Hearts' cup surrender

LEE WALLACE revealed today how the bitter reality of Hearts' Scottish Cup exit only started to sink in when he turned up for his first training session with Scotland Under-21s.

The Hearts left-back spent Monday and Tuesday being put through his paces with the Under-21s at Lesser Hampden - his first trip back to Mount Florida since winning the showpiece final back in May last year - ahead of last night's international friendly with Germany.
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Around 250,000 people crammed the streets of Edinburgh to see the cup brought home in an open-top bus but there will be no repeat of those celebrations this year after Hearts were knocked out of the competition at the fourth-round stage to Dunfermline. While Wallace was delighted to be part of the 21s set-up, he revealed: "It was gutting to go out of the Scottish Cup last weekend, especially after winning it. To be honest it was really hard just going back to Hampden this week with the Scotland squad for training. Turning up there on Monday just brought back memories of the cup final and all of the celebrations at the end of the game against Gretna when we went round the pitch with the trophy.

"To go back there and see the stadium, it really sank in that we won't be going back in May this year. But we've got to pick ourselves up and get on with it and make sure that we finish the season well."

Wallace played the full 90 minutes against Germany at Broadwood last night, one of Scotland's most impressive performers despite the 2-0 defeat. With Wallace, Calum Elliot and Jamie MacDonald all called up to the 21s, that brings the number of Hearts stars involved in this week's Scotland meetings alone to seven and Wallace has been able to call on several of his team-mates, past and present, for advice on the step up to international duty.

"When Steven (Pressley) and Paul (Hartley) were still with the club and I went to Poland they gave me a lot of advice, they were always good with that kind of thing whether it was Scotland or Hearts that I was playing for. The other players have been good as well, as have the management staff too.

"It's great to have so many Hearts players involved with Scotland, no matter what age level they are in at. Steven and Paul have both been in the team regularly and also Craig (Gordon) and Robbie (Neilson) have been in there so it is good to see and hopefully we can continue that in the future. It's good for the club to have so many players involved with the international sides.

"It was disappointing that Calum missed out, I sent him a text the day before the game to try to sort out travel arrangements and he said that he was having to pull out. But he wished me all the best."

The Scots fell behind after 22 minutes when a poor clearance from Hibs keeper Andy McNeil fell straight to Marc-Andre Kruska and the quick-thinking German picked out Aaron Hunt to hook home the opener.

However, McNeil made amends for his blunder when he got down brilliantly to his left to block a powerful low effort from Pascal Bieler just minutes later and when Gonzalo Castro tried his luck from the rebound from the edge of the box he was down to his other side to stop that effort too.

Coach Maurice Malpas gave Hearts' Jamie MacDonald the second half and the young keeper was in action within seconds when fellow sub Sebastian Boenisch teed-up Patrick Ebert, but MacDonald was in the right place at the right time to block.

He went one better in 65 when Ebert unleashed a stunning effort that looked a certainty to thunder in at the postage stamp corner, only for MacDonald to somehow get across his goal and touch it onto the corner of the woodwork.

When Wallace gave away a free-kick on the left though, the Germans doubled their advantage, and Ebert's free-kick was smashed home at the far post by Robert Flessers running in completely unmarked. Wallace said: "It was my first 21s game so it was great. I was delighted to be involved.

"It was brilliant when we were out in Poland and got to the final and most of the boys from that are involved with the 21s this time so it has been good to have so many familiar faces around.

"There is a really good team spirit, it was just a friendly match but hopefully it can be a wee stepping stone to the full squad one day."

The 18-year-old is now in line for a place in the Under-20 side which will head for the World Cup in the summer and, having been involved in the Under-19 side which helped them qualify, he has high hopes for Canada.

He added: "If we show the same attitude as we did in Poland then we will have a real chance.

"There are a lot of really good sides involved so it will be a real test, sides like Argentine and Brazil but you have to go there with confidence and you never know what can happen.

"I think that you only have to look at the first game that we played in Poland when we lost 4-0 to Spain, most people would probably not have expected us to have reached the final after watching that game.

"But we managed to pull together and worked hard, we lost the final but it was a lot closer than that first game and I think we proved a point to a few people."

Taken from the Scotsman