Hibs Under-19 coach Darren McGregor hopes his squad “take advantage” of the “amazing” competition they find themselves in.
The Scottish youth champions are now heading into their UEFA Youth League third round tie following a 4-1 aggregate triumph over Kosovan outift FC 2 Korriku in the last stage.
Next up for the team is Ukrainian heavyweights Dynamo Kyiv, who will play their home tie at Stal Stalowa Wola Stadium in Poland due to ongoing conflict.
The youngsters arrived in Poland on Monday evening and were greeted with snow, and plenty of it – which is not something McGregor is concerned about heading into Wednesday’s tie.
“I actually thought it would be colder to be fair,” he told Hibs TV. “The snow has been cleared, it’s about two or three foot high, so it’s obviously snowed a lot. But I think the conditions are good.
“I think the pitch, after being on it, is good. Good surface. Same sort of dimensions as Easter Road. So it’s nothing that the lads won’t be used to.
“It’s amazing,” McGregor continued. “It’s amazing memories for the group to go to places like Kosovo and then to come to places like Poland and play against real top tier European clubs.
“That’s obviously off the back of such a successful season last year. We just hope the lads obviously take advantage of the situation and maximise it to their full potential.”
Due to the weather and concerns over the good condition of the pitch lasting, the youngsters trained on the Astroturf facility adjacent to the stadium on Tuesday afternoon.
“Preparations have been fine. It’s not ideal, obviously, that we never got on the pitch today because of the conditions and obviously the fear that we might hinder the pitch’s surface, which was totally understandable.
“So we trained on the astro. The lads are used to astro. They’ve played on astro all their days. For us, it’s the mentality. Going up against a big, strong team like Dynamo Kyiv. So we’re just looking forward, obviously, to the challenge.
“We’re expecting a really tough challenge. We’ve looked at them on the video a few times. We know that they played FC 2 Korriku last year and we know the result that they had against them. So they’re a really decent operator.
“We all need to be at our best to stay in the tie. But I believe, and I’ve said it time and time again, that the group that we’ve got, not only the 2007 group, but the years below that, are a really, really good group.
“We’re the champions of Scotland. We’re representing not only Scotland but Hibernian Football Club. So we want the lads to believe that they can come over here and compete and get a result as well.”
