Polish midfielder Mrowiec reveals desire to extend Hearts stay

Uprooting your wife and kids with every transfer move and starting from scratch in foreign climes is the difficult reality of the globetrotting professional footballer.

Patience and the ability to acclimatise to a new land are the key factors in most successful transfers and are both traits learned 'on the job' by Hearts midfielder Adrian Mrowiec.

Having posted some superlative SPL performances since impressing Jim Jefferies at a trial in Italy last summer - at the same Il Ciocco complex from which the Hearts squad return to Edinburgh this evening - Mrowiec, who began his career at Wisla Krakow in his homeland of Poland, still found obstacles in his pursuit of happiness in the Capital, the largest one posed by the inability of his wife Kasia to settle at their Buckstone home. Now his other half has found friendships among the city's natives and sizeable Polish contingent, Mrowiec has seen the missing piece of the jigsaw fall into place and is keen to extend his stay at Tynecastle - despite still having two years to run on his contract.

"I feel at the moment it's a very good time at Hearts," said the 27-year-old. "We play well and we have the Europa League so, yeah, of course I want to stay here.

"My wife maybe before didn't want to stay here because when we moved to Edinburgh she didn't have any friends, and now she has friends and she says, 'If it's possible, sign a contract.' I say to her, 'It's not so easy!' She doesn't want to move now, she wants to stay. She likes Edinburgh and also my (older] daughter goes to school and the second one goes to playschool, so it's good.

"Edinburgh is very like Krakow. Krakow is a nice city, a very old city. Glasgow is like Warsaw - everything is new and it's big, and I don't like it. I have so many Polish friends and there are so many Polish shops - I feel ('at home'] like I am in Poland."

The midfield enforcer turned in 30 league appearances in the 2010-11 season and was recognised as a vital cog in the centre of the pitch for Hearts in the early part of the last campaign. While his role in front of the back four as a 'destroyer' of opposition attacks may seem unspectacular, Mrowiec jokes that without him there as 'the glue', the midfield falls apart. Despite being said in jest, it's a reflection of the quiet effectiveness he carries in that position. "I like to play there," he said. "Nobody talks about you but you have to work for five people, so it's very hard work."

Mrowiec has established a reputation for such industry, and it was a grafting performance at Ibrox that drew the attention of Hearts. He stresses that the game, played three years ago when the rangy 6ft 1ins man wore the shirt of Kaunas and contributed greatly to a two-leg victory over Rangers in a Champions League upset, ignited his ambition to play in Scotland.

"I think this, because this was my visit in Scotland," he said. "For me, it's something new, coming to a stadium of 40,000. It's impressive. After I go to Tynecastle I see all these fans - 20,000 - and it's fantastic."

After winning an admirer in then-Hearts boss Csaba Laszlo, Mrowiec played ten games for Hearts after arriving in Edinburgh on loan during the 2008-09 season - an arrangement eased by Vladimir Romanov's controlling interest in both his parent club Kaunas and Hearts. The player remained on Hearts' radar thereafter and went on trial for Hearts at Jefferies' favourite Tuscan pre-season retreat, impressing sufficiently to win a three-year deal.

"Csaba Laszlo was here as coach and Kaunas played in the Champions League qualification against Rangers and Csaba came to watch me and he said 'okay, you can come'.