Hearts in the Champions League

The Jambos are back in the top competition after a 20-year absence

This article was written for Scottishfootball.info by Josh Duncan, an aspiring sports writer, who has his own Substack account. Please follow him there and on X.com.

Josh’s latest article is a tactical analysis of Hearts’ opponents, Sturm Graz.

Hearts and their supporters head off to Austria’s second largest city tomorrow, to face Austria’s second best team (of last season), Sturm Graz. With Wouter Vrancken getting his first taste of competitive football as Hearts manager. The match is live on Premier Sports on Tuesday evening, with a 7:30pm kick off.

Sturm Graz have a rich European history but struggled in UEFA competition last year. They were brushed aside by Bodø/Glimt in Champions League qualifiers before finishing 26th in the Europa League.

Despite their poor European form last season, Graz will be a tough test for Hearts. A new manager and major squad changes will have made preparation for this tie difficult. Time will tell if the new ideas have been embedded well enough to survive the trip to Austria.

It’s not clear how Sturm Graz will adapt their play to European games. Fabio Ingolitsch took over the team in January and only led the team for two European matches.

In domestic play, the 5-time Austrian champions opt for a 3-4-1-2 formation on paper. The way they use that formation depends on the game situation. I’d like to look at a few different options that Sturm take and how Hearts may get some joy against them.

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Despite being naturally ball dominant in their domestic play, Sturm are comfortable without it. They use counter movements to create direct attacking opportunities.

The midfielders drop to receive the ball and the frontline moves in behind to stretch the game. This gives space to fight for a long ball, if they don’t win straight away, Sturm will then counter press to win the ball back high.

Those dropping midfielders aren’t just decoys though, Sturm will try to play through the middle when they create the space for it.

The left wing back drops in early to make a back four, which stretches the opposition press. When they trigger the press it leaves space down either side of the deepest midfielder, usually Stankovic, for the more advanced midfielders to receive in.

Sturm are happiest when teams want to press them, they have multiple solutions to this problem. They can play through the middle like that or make the distances big and go direct into these spaces. Below is another example of this.

The Sturm midfield is very physical but not incredible under pressure. I think Hearts can get to them and create opportunities when Sturm play through the middle.

If Hearts can get on to the midfield quickly then they can force errors and win the ball back high up the pitch. This could be one of their best ways to create in the away leg, where Sturm might be more expansive in their play. Below are a couple of examples of Salzburg doing this towards the end of last season.