It looks as though Hearts, not Hibs are on the brink of securing a deal to play a pre-season friendly in the summer against the mighty Barcelona.
We already know that the Catalan giants have organised a match against Dundee United commemorating their famous UEFA Cup tie of 1987 (was that really 20 years ago?!) but they were also looking to play a match in Scotland’s capital during their stay here. Originally it was Hibs who looked as though they’d stolen a march on their old rivals by staking their claim to play Barca at Easter Road, but it now seems that their preferred option would be to play against Hearts at Murrayfield.
According to quotes in the Scotsman, an ‘interested party’ said that ‘Hibs were never meaningfully involved. Barcelona were more interested in Hearts.’ If that is the case, then it’s pleasing to see that even down in the East of Spain they’ve got their heads screwed on about the football pecking order in Scotland’s capital!
Hearts officials would appear to be very tight-lipped about the potential game though. A spokesman for the club would only say:
‘We’re currently finalising our plans for the pre-season, and hope to announce those in the near future.’
Very non-committal at this stage, but the possibility of this is very exciting indeed, especially if Barca were planning to bring some of their top stars over. I’m sure thousands of neutrals from all over the country as well as Hearts fans would flock to Murrayfield for a glimpse of the likes of Messi or Ronaldinho, provided of course that Hearts get the pricing structure right for the game! Let’s face it, they haven’t always done that.
Hopefully it’ll happen……
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even if they did I doubt you would get the top stars there to be honest , mind you the barca reserves are probably full of names that we know already lol
Would this be the first Hearts sell-out at Murrayfield? I’d think so.
Hmm I think a sell-out is VERY optimistic, unless of course the top tier is closed! Could potentially get near 40,000 I think, but that’s only if some of the top guys are playing, which as dazednconfuzed rightfully said, may not be the case.
I think there’d be a lot of interest from the neutrals and those who just want to see Messi, Ronaldinho and co. in the flesh. Lets face it, most of us wouldn’t get the chance otherwise. So you never know. I also disagree with the notion that they’d play their reserve team – this would be a warm-up game for them as much as us, so what’s the point in playing their reserve team for the whole match? You’d have to think that their top players would figure for at least some of the game.