Craig Levein: Hearts will be established top-four club when fans take over club

Discounting Celtic is always dangerous, though. Striker Odsonne Edouard won a disputed penalty ten minutes after Edwards’ opener. The Frenchman converted it and then capitalised on a moment of slackness by the Hearts defence to score the winner with eight minutes remainng.

Craig Levein and his players were then forced to watch their opponents celebrate an unprecedented Treble Treble having been in a winning position half an hour previously. It was soul-destroying after a commendable display by a team written off in many quarters ahead of the final.

Levein stood deep in the bowels of Hampden Park almost an hour after full-time taking stock and fighting to stifle his raw emotions. One thing he will not do, having helped rebuild Hearts post-administration alongside owner Ann Budge, is give up.

Watching 16-year-old Aaron Hickey – the youngest player to start a Scottish Cup final – stand out against Scotland’s Player of the Year James Forrest gave Levein enormous pride.

Other teenage graduates of the Riccarton youth academy generate the same feeling within the manager. Boys like Harry Cochrane, Connor Smith, Anthony McDonald and Callumn Morrison.

This is a time when Levein intends to press forward with his and Budge’s plans in both his capacities as manager and director of football.

“I take great heart from knowing what’s happening at the club and knowing the young players who are coming through,” he said.

“There aren’t just one or two, there are dozens of them in all honesty. That encourages me. Whether I’m still here in three years’ time when these boys are playing 40 games a season, who knows?

“Hickey has played in front of 110,000 people in the last two games [both against Celtic]. Not many people do that at the time of their debut. He handled both occasions with great aplomb.

“We had this situation with Harry Cochrane and Anthony McDonald last year where everybody tries to put them up on a pedestal when they are still learning the game. Aaron is the same. He has been fantastic in the last two games.”

Levein’s relationship with Budge remains strong at the end of their initial five-year plan to re-establish Hearts. “We work well together because there is an honesty there,” added Levein. “Ann is slightly different from most owners in that the plan from the beginning is what we’re doing now.

“Only in football does it feel right to make changes when what you set out to do in the beginning is starting to bear fruit. You only see Hickey in a couple of matches and the rest of it. There is a lot more. By the time the supporters take over the club in a couple of years, we will be solidly established as a top-four club.”

There is now enormous potential to be realised over the next five years, according to Levein. Losing a Scottish Cup final after a valiant effort won’t stop the forward-planning. “All of that is being looked at just now,” he explained.

“A lot of things have worked really well but, in football, you are always judged on the first team. People just think that whatever is happening with the first team, the rest of the company is being run the same way. Or, if the team isn’t doing well then the rest of the company isn’t doing well. That’s not how it works.”

There will always be dissenting voices, from his club’s own supporters and from outwith. One of the particularly vocal ones in the build-up to the final belonged to Kilmarnock captain Kris Boyd. He stated that Hearts did not stand a chance at Hampden.

“I don’t listen to Kris Boyd very much, like he didn’t listen to me very much when I was Scotland manager,” remarked Levein. “I understood Celtic were heavy favourites for the final. Knowing we’d get Peter Haring and Arnaud Djoum back in the team gave me some hope.

“The emergence of young Hickey, the energy of Ryan Edwards and the training we did beforehand gave me great hope that we had a performance in us to give us a chance.”

Zdenek Zlamal’s decision to challenge Edouard led to the penalty, although the Czech maintained he made no contact and that the award was unfair. Defensive slackness allowed Edouard in for the second, but Levein admirably praised his charges.

“I couldn’t ask for any more. We made a couple of mistakes but that’s normal in a football match. What happened was we scored and then Celtic upped their game.

“They got better after we scored. We weathered the spell and I thought we’d got through it when the penalty came. If we could have held on a while longer, I felt we could have won the match.

“I think teams are getting closer to Celtic. Us and other teams have had our moments against Celtic. The domination will end if teams do well enough to beat them in the league and the cups. We will be trying our best to do that.”