Hearts manager Jim Jefferies believes Marian Kello deserves to be capped by Slovakia after the goalkeeper made an important penalty save in the 2-0 home win against Hamilton in the Clydesdale Bank Scottish Premier League.
Impressive goals in each half from Rudi Skacel and David Templeton put the third-placed side in front, before Kello expertly saved a late penalty from Simon Mensing to give him a quartet of successive clean sheets as his in-form side recorded their fourth consecutive 2-0 win.
The Hearts manager said: "I don't think you can blame Mensing for missing a penalty - you have to put it down to a world-class save, and the Slovakian goalkeeper must be good if Marian is only on standby. He's well worth looking at as he's easily recognisable as an international goalie and has been fantastic for us since I've been here."
He added: "It was a fantastic save; he'll be very proud that he's had a lot of clean sheets lately as all goalies thrive on clean sheets, and the defence can thank him enormously because if Hamilton had scored at that time, they'd have got a lift so it was a really important save at the right time."
It came on the day when Tynecastle paid its respects to the late former goalkeeper Jim Cruickshank, a former team mate of Jefferies', with Kello placing a commemorative jersey in his goal net.
Jefferies added: "Jim Cruickshank was a great penalty saver - how fitting is it that Marian comes out with the jersey and makes a fantastic save from a penalty on the day we paid our respects to him.
"I knew before the game that it would be a hard-fought win. Hamilton are a stuffy team to play and I predicted that they'd make it hard; they plugged away, we just had that bit more quality.
"We were a wee bit flat in getting going, but then we looked for that wee bit of quality and Skacel provided it.
"At half-time we said it was going to plan and that if we got the second goal thought we'd go on from there."
Source: PA
