Adelaide United Head Coach, Ivan Karlovic, was content with the end result away from home against quality opposition, and remains optimistic about the rest of their 2017/18 Westfield W-League campaign.
Karlovic complimented Sarah Willacy on her performance, especially the last-minute save of Kyah Simon’s penalty to secure a point for the Reds against Melbourne City on Sunday.
“Away from home, you are always happy to come home with something,” Karlovic said.
“We had a few moments where we hit the post, but at the end of the day, you save a penalty at the death, so we will take that point and be happy with it.
“Eliza (Campbell) unfortunately hit her head on the post during the last match for the National Team, and suffered some delayed on-set of concussion, so it wasn’t worth taking that risk.
“Sarah (Willacy) is a fantastic goalkeeper, an excellent shot-stopper, and I had complete faith in her.
“It’s always a 50/50 with a penalty kick, but she’s a ‘keeper that can cover her goal really well which she proved, and thankfully kept it a 1-1.”
https://players.brightcove.net/5498268479001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5666647524001
With such a short season, Karlovic believes that taking it game by game is the key to racking up some points, and his side are more than capable of testing and pushing quality opposition until the final whistle.
“We have quality players in our side too, such as Colaprico, Chidiac and Mautz who are all fantastic in their own right and I thought they gave City a good battle and really tested them,” Karlovic continued.
“Moving forward, we just have to keep winning games and I think that if you can string a few games together, anything can happen as you’re taking points off other sides.
“We take it game by game, and we will start to look to next week and hopefully get some points from that game, and continue to move on.”
With Alyssa Mautz’ equaliser, Karlovic said that the most important thing about goals is that they hit the back of the net, no matter who scores them.
“For me, I don’t believe you have to rely on one particular player, it is a team effort.
“And today Alyssa (Mautz) came up with the goods, and next week it could be someone else like, Doniak or Jones.
“As long as the goals are going in, I don’t care who scores them.”
The AUFC Women travel back to Melbourne on Saturday, 9 December to face Melbourne Victory in Rond 6 of the Westfield W-League at Lakeside Stadium. Kick-off is 4:00pm ACDT.
