Saturday October 31st 2026
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Adam Bowen
Hibs travel to the national stadium on Sunday where they face their rivals, Hearts. These two last played each other at Hampden in April 2022, with Hearts winning 2-1, booking themselves a place in the Scottish Cup Final.
It is a semi-final again, but this time it is the Premier Sports Cup.
It will be Marink Reedijk’s first Edinburgh Derby, speaking on it he said,
“It’s a special match in several ways,
When you were a little boy, as a player, as a member of staff, and all, as a fan, you look forward to, because these are the matches where it’s not only the derby, it’s also a semifinal. And it’s one step away from a final, so. That is a double way of excitement, and this is why I’m very much looking forward to this game.”
This will not be the first time Reedijk has faced Vrancken; he has faced him as an assistant but also in friendly matches during their time in Belgium.
When asked if there will be no secrets, as they know so much about each other already, Reedijk said,
“It will be that it is 110%, it will be in the stand very electric, very vocal, very intense. So, in itself, these matches always bring a sort of a surprise because these are special matches. It’s a match where anything happens, things happen, strange things happen.”
When asked if he was seeing steady progression after each game, Reedijk replied,
“Yes. Definitely. I think we are compact together, and in the defence, I think we are front foot defending. I think over time against Celtic, but also against St Mirren, we recovered the ball a few times up high. On the ball, we have clear, patterns, you see certain things coming back.”
He went on to say how the goal against St Mirren was an example of the togetherness and intensity that the team and the fans have.
Reedijk likes to focus on his own game and believes that no matter who you are playing if you play your own way and deliver you can beat anyone, explaining,
“The only thing you have control over is what we do so they come into the spaces we want them to come and into the decision we want them to come.”
Not only does the Hibs boss know Wouter Vrancken but he also knows Hearts keeper, Beua Reus, who was Reedijk’s starting keeper for SK Beveren in their invincible title winning season in the second tier of Belgian football last season.
“Yeah, it’s a special connection and, I said before in the beginning it’s something where we will always be linked, not only him and me, but also with the whole team, linked together for the rest of our lives because of the performance of last year.”
He was also asked about how different it is in the fact that at Beveren he was winning all the time and now he’s going through a challenging period at Hibs,
“It is interesting because everybody recognises, of course, last year with Beveren, but in the beginning at Beveren, we had the same sort of spells.”
I know the results are important and the results are important. But also, on if the result is not there, is the performance there? And if the performance is there, then it’s a matter of time. If the performance is not there, I also say, and then we need to focus again on the performance, but the performances are getting better and better and better.”
Interestingly, he said he believes you only ever play 3 or 4 perfect matches a year.
Finally, he spoke about the derby he used to go to as a kid which was Feyenoord v Ajax
“You saw a lot of people coming in, very emotional, very much, already before waiting for the fans of the opponent coming out of the train. These kind of elements, what I just hope is that everything which is done between the fans is in a respectful manner and in an appropriate, as you say, where you want to win, but in an appropriate way, and that’s important to me as well, that because in some of those matches, I saw on the other side, and this is something I dislike.”
He clearly understands how much football means to the fans, so I’m sure his players will give everything they can to come out on top of their city rivals tomorrow.
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