{"id":6046,"date":"2026-01-16T17:28:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T17:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=6046"},"modified":"2026-01-16T17:28:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T17:28:03","slug":"scottish-cup-picks-hearts-v-falkirk-celtics-benjamin-nygren-aberdeens-peter-leven-in-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=6046","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Cup picks: Hearts v Falkirk, Celtic&#8217;s Benjamin Nygren &#038; Aberdeen&#8217;s Peter Leven in focus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Of the three all-top flight ties on Saturday, Falkirk&#8217;s visit to Hearts (20:00 GMT) is the one that most captures the imagination.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hearts are flying high at the top of the Premiership, six points clear of their nearest challengers after a hard-fought midweek win over St Mirren.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Derek McInnes&#8217; side had an early exit from this season&#8217;s Premier Sports Cup and will be eager to go far in the Scottish Cup, even more so with new signings in the door this month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As for Falkirk, they ran Celtic close on Wednesday evening and the 1-0 defeat should not overly dampen what has been a fine campaign so far for John McGlynn&#8217;s side.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The two league encounters between Hearts and Falkirk this season have both been won by Hearts and the Bairns are yet to score in the fixture this term. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Falkirk won the last knock-out meeting between the two, 2-0 at home in the League Cup in August 2024, and also won on their visit to Tynecastle &#8211; 3-2 when both were in the Championship in January 2015.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, to prevail again they would have to end Hearts&#8217; 13-game unbeaten home run this season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Of the three all-top flight ties on Saturday, Falkirk&#8217;s visit to Hearts (20:00 GMT) is the one that most captures the imagination. Hearts are flying high at the top of the Premiership, six points clear of their nearest challengers after a hard-fought midweek win over St Mirren. Derek McInnes&#8217; side had an early exit from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}