Adelaide United FC will go into Friday night’s crucial game against Melbourne Victory at the Adelaide Oval without Cassio after it was confirmed the gun Brazilian defender has a thigh strain.
Cassio had scans on his injured thigh this morning revealing a strain that will keep him out of Friday night-s encounter with the Victory.
United-s ‘pocket rocket- suffered the injury just before the half hour mark of last Saturday-s match against the Wellington Phoenix and left the field in discomfort shortly after.
While he will not figure in the match at the Adelaide Oval, Cassio-s progress will be reviewed heading into the opening weekend of the finals series and Head Coach Rini Coolen will be hopeful of having him available for the club-s cut throat elimination final.
The setback of losing one of his key players is just what Coolen did not need leading into the final weekend of the minor round and with the start of the finals series imminent.
“He (Cassio) is out for Friday and we-ll see how he pulls up in the days after and hope he is ok for the finals, but that is what we have wait and to find out,” Coolen said.
“It-s disappointing that you lose one of your starting eleven players, now we have to look at solutions on how we cover that.”
Cassio has only missed one game this season, which was due to suspension back in September.
The news is also not promising for young utility Osama Malik, who is in doubt for Friday night with a hamstring injury. Malik, who came on for Cassio against the Phoenix, had scans this morning and will be in a race against time to recover from a minor strain to the same hamstring that he injured playing for the North Queensland Fury back in December.
Tickets for the Reds- match against Melbourne Victory are available through Ticketek.
