Claudio Braga says his skipper makes football look easy and it’s helped him up his game in Gorgie
Lawrence Shankland celebrates with Claudio Braga(Image: SNS Group)
Claudio Braga believes being at close quarters with the quality of Lawrence Shankland is taking his game to another level
The Hearts striker has been blown away by the standards being set by his sidekick this season and admits he’s p****d off his can’t match them.
As the Jambos prepare to face Rangers on Sunday, the 26-year-old revealed his being driven to distraction by his skipper on a daily basis and trying to become a better player.
He said: “Lawrence p****s me off, to be honest, because he’s just too good. For example, I feel like I’m a more energetic guy and everything, but he makes things look easy. It’s like, how do you do that? He’s just really that good when it comes to the ball at his feet. The ball does what he wants it to do at so that impressed me.
“In the beginning, before I came here, I was kind of scared because during my first training, I looked at the first touch and quality of the guys and I was actually impressed, really impressed. thought it was going to be tough for me, but then as soon as you start playing with them and you start learning and taking some advice I knew I was going to do be able to do this and I need to push myself to do better,
“I needed to fit in with the technique and the quality of the guys and then you want to keep pushing, pushing, pushing, and suddenly you are pushing others to have the same as you.
“I look at what Lawrence is best at, so that helps me a lot on being a more balanced player. I still need to learn a lot and I know sometimes I make stupid mistakes, but that’s part of being a football player. I’m happy actually to be with guys with so much quality that I look up for and they piss me off when I see that they are that good.”
The Tynecastle side will aim to extend a nine point lead over the Ibrox side in Gorgie and Braga is adamant their gap at the summit isn’t something he’s focused on as he believes looking too close at their lofty position brings unwanted stress into the dressing room.
He said: “You look at the table, of course, but we are actually trying to push each other to not think about that, not think about the title race, just because it’s so many games. You probably know for sure that if you put that pressure on as a player then you’ll have difficulty focusing on what you need to focus on which is the next game and that’s it. If we focus on, let’s say, Rangers, Hibs, Falkirk, it doesn’t really help us, does it? So I think we need to try to push ourselves to take that away thinking that way.
“The Rangers match is an important game for us, we are at home and we want to win. We want to have this momentum that we built at beginning of the season. Hopefully we can do it at home against Rangers to keep going with the momentum that we have. I wouldn’t say we are thinking about how the other teams are behind us or something. I think if we keep thinking about how we need to do this to win and then we win games, then it doesn’t really matter.”
Claudio Braga celebrates
Braga will share an embrace with fellow Portuguese hitman Youssef Chermiti before the ball gets rolling on Sunday and he backed the misfiring Rangers striker to find his feet in a Light Blue Jersey but just as long as he doesn’t get into his scoring stride against the Jambos.
He said: “I spoke with Youssef when he came on in the previous game against Rangers a little bit. To be honest, he’s a Portuguese guy, I hope he does well, except against us of course. I hope he can go through this tough moment. I think for any player it’s a difficult position to be in because the pressure is so big in the way of how much you cost and how much people expect from you.
“I think you just give time to him. He was a good player when he was in the Portuguese league. He plays for the national team at under 21 level. He’s a good player. You don’t go to the national team if you’re not a good player. It’s about the moments, some players take a little bit more to get adapted. He’s Portuguese so I wish him all the best.”