Robbie Neilson has opened up on his Hearts plan to mimic what it will be like to play on the European stage this upcoming campaign.
The Jambos are guaranteed eight games in Europe this season after their stunning season last time out. They finished third in the Premiership standings behind Celtic and Rangers while they also reached the Scottish Cup Final. That landed the capital club a spot in the Europa League play-off round - just 180 minutes away from the group stages. But they have the added incentive of a guaranteed place in the Europa Conference League proper if they lose out.
Playing in Europe will mean Thursday-Sunday football regularly next season and Neilson and his backroom staff felt his squad needed to replicate the schedule ahead of them with travelling in between.
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The warm-weather training camp in Spain last week was the first part of that process with the Hearts top team put through their paces in the sweltering heat while also taking part in a pre-season friendly with FC Europa.
Three games with Scottish opposition comes this week before two away days in England with Neilson explaining the process behind the decision for those games with travelling and training in between.
Neilson told the Edinburgh Evening News: "A lot of the players in this squad haven't played Thursday-Sunday-Thursday-Sunday like that. We just wanted to try and replicate that using these games in England.
“We will train at our training ground on the Tuesday, then we will travel down and play on the Wednesday night. That will mimic a European away trip in some senses. We will do that twice just to try and get the boys used to it.
“We went to Spain because we could be going to southern Europe to play soon so you need to be able to deal with this kind of heat and get used to it. There is the whole build-up to these games as well, staying out of the sun during the day, then making sure you're hydrated and ready.
“Spain was a great facility. It was very warm there and difficult to train but that allows us to do things a lot sharper and means it's a lot harder for them. We are really pleased with the camp.
“The most important thing is that the players don't get any injuries at this stage. We need to push them as hard as we can but without them getting injured. It was a really good week, the camp was good and the boys trained really well.
“They bonded through being together and then we got a game at the end against Europa to build a wee bit of momentum, so I'm pleased.”
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