Adelaide United goalkeeper, Joe Gauci, says he and his teammates are looking forward to their upcoming trip to face Wellington Phoenix in Round 1 of the 2022/23 season.
Speaking to media at Coopers Stadium on Thursday afternoon, Gauci touched on the impending trip across the ditch.
Pre-season’s end:
“The boys are all really excited.
“It’s been a long pre-season, I think about three months now, so the vibes in the changeroom are definitely high leading into the game.
“The last two years, I’ve picked up injuries early in pre-season that meant I missed a large chunk of it then came back two weeks before the first game.
“So it was really important for me and for my own mental (health) as well to get a full pre-season under my belt to try and cement my spot as number one (goalkeeper).”
Returning to Wellington:
“This will be my first opportunity to play (in Wellington), so I’m really looking forward to it.
“I’ve heard that it’s a tough trip with lots of travel and we’re going two days before the game to get used to the to the time difference as well.
“It’s always gonna be a tough battle and, for them, they’re going to be excited and will probably get a good turnout of fans (because) they haven’t been home in a while, but to have a full season for them at home will great for the league.”
Starting well before the World Cup break:
“I mean, you can kind of look at it two ways.
“You go into the break after six games and you’re on top and it can maybe kill your momentum.
“But if you don’t have a great start, you’ve got a little bit of time to maybe rectify things.
“I think you’d want to be chased heading into that break and you want to be as high (on the table) as you can, so I think it’s important for us to pick up points early.
“We just focus on week to week.
“Obviously Wellington’s up first and we’re focused on going there and coming away with three points.
“Like I said, it’s going to be a tough trip, but the most important thing is we’ll just go from week to week.”
