John Kosmina is not holding his breath of having Dario Vidosic for the crucial ACL match against Pohang on Wednesday night.
Adelaide United FC Coach John Kosmina is not holding his breath of having influential attacking midfielder Dario Vidosic for the Reds- crucial AFC Champions League Group Stage match against the Pohang Steelers on Wednesday night at Hindmarsh Stadium.
Vidosic suffered a slight hamstring strain in the opening 30 minutes of the Reds- last AFC Champions League encounter; a 1-0 loss to Pohang in South Korea on April 3.
The prognosis meant Vidosic was likely to be sidelined for at least two weeks, and with a fortnight between ACL matches, it meant it would be borderline on whether he would available or not.
Speaking after the squad-s training session this morning in which Vidosic went through his paces away from the main group, Kosmina stated he is taking a cautious approach with his number 10 and will not take any risks if he does not think Vidosic is fully fit.
“He-s a maybe,” Kosina said of Vidosic-s chances of playing on Wednesday.
“The things he did today were all well and good, it-s what he hasn-t done for the last ten days that-s probably more important, and he didn-t train that much leading up to the Pohang game two weeks ago so that-s the issue.”
“We-ll see how he pulls up tomorrow with the hamstring because a bit of workload is a good test.”
Due to the injury forcing Vidosic-s early exit from the last game, Kosmina must take into consideration any chance that the Qantas Socceroos midfielder-s hamstring problem could flare up again if he does play.
But while this will no doubt come into Kosmina-s thinking, he has not closed the door on Vidosic being ruled out just yet.
“We need eleven blokes who are 150 per cent on Wednesday night, but he-s not out of the loop just yet,” Kosmina said.
“We-ll have a good look at him Sunday – he needs to do the full session flat out on Sunday otherwise forget it.”
Similarly to any player wanting desperately to prove their fitness, Vidosic himself is optimistic of doing enough in the team-s remaining training sessions to be available.
“I-d love to think that I will play so I-ll train hard in the coming days and hopefully I-ll be fine to play a part in the game,” Vidosic said.
“It (the hamstring) has been feeling good over the past few days, I-ve been doing some running and it has pulled through fine but I think the big test will be when I need to start sprinting and the quick changes in direction and if I can get through that then I should be able to make it onto the park on Wednesday.”
“I-m confident I can make it and hopefully fingers crossed everything goes well. The physios might have to hold me back because I definitely want to make it onto the pitch.”
While every game in the Group Stage is important, Wednesday night-s sixth meeting between Adelaide United and Pohang looms as an extra crucial one as the Reds currently sit equal on points with the Steelers at the top of Group E.
With three match days to go and the top two at the end of the Group Stage moving through to the knockout Round of 16, a win over the Steelers at home would inch Adelaide United that bit closer to progressing.
The squad will have a rest day tomorrow before training on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at Hindmarsh before the match with Pohang on Wednesday night.
Kick-Off is at 7.30pm (ACST) and tickets are available through Ticketek.
