Adelaide United Head Coach, Marco Kurz, admits he saw promising signs in the Reds’ first pre-season friendly match.
Adelaide secured a comfortable 5-0 win over White City at Marden Sports Complex on Wednesday night, in what was largely a one-sided display.
Nikola Mileusnic opened the scoring in impressive fashion before new signing, George Blackwood, and Jordan Elsey added a goal each to make it 3-0 at the interval.
United youth defender, Paul Wilson, and Marc Marino both chimed in with goals off the bench late in the second-half to complete the victory.
Following the match, Kurz gave his summation of the team’s performance.
“I think it was a good test today,” Kurz said.
“It’s important that we have tests against opposition teams.
“I think 5-0 is an okay result… The first 15 minutes we built up and we created chances.
“But I think we had eight or nine minutes where we lost the ball too often and the distance between the lines got bigger and bigger and the opposing team had two chances.
“It’s too much, but I think after 30 minutes we had control of the game and it was good.
“In the second-half we changed a lot of players and a lot of young players came in and did a good job.”
Kurz said getting minutes under the players’ belts to increase fitness levels was also important.
“It’s important to have friendly games,” Kurz said.
“You can train hard, but friendly games are the best to get the match fitness and today was the first test after four weeks (of training).”
“We missed a lot of players but I think we did a good job.”
Kurz said he was looking forward to having the likes of Baba Diawara, and new arrivals Ersan Gülüm and Johan Absalonsen at his disposal in the future and insisted his team have plenty of room for improvement moving forward.
“Sure that’s the first step (to integrate the aforementioned players into the team),” he said.
“But it’s a lower team today and it’s important you’ve a good feeling.
“I think we have a lot of work to do for the cup game (against Newcastle Jets) and then we have time to build up the team for the next matches.”
Adelaide United host Newcastle Jets in the Round of 32 of the 2017 Westfield FFA Cup on Wednesday, 9 August at Marden Sports Complex. Kick-off is at 7.00pm ACST.
