Newcastle striker Jason Hoffman has described his winning goal against Ulsan Hyundai in Wednesday night’s Asian Champions League as one of the best moments in his career.
Hoffman, who has recently returned from a long-term knee injury, headed home Fabio Vignaroli’s cross in the 36th minute to score his first goal for the club and help the Jets to a 1-0 win as well as a place in the prestigious competition’s Round of 16.
“It was right up there with the Hyundai A-League Grand Final win, but personally it was one of the best times I have had so far in my short career,” Hoffman told the media upon his return to Newcastle on Friday.
“I have just come back from a knee reconstruction and that has been a bit of a dark patch in my career so far, but scoring that first goal and getting that hoodoo off my back was a great feeling.”
“And to do it in such an important game for the club and this town I couldn’t have written the script any better myself.”
“The disappointment for me was that I picked up my second yellow card so I will miss the knockout game against Pohang. Hopefully the boys will get through and there will be more football to come.”
Hoffman also heaped praise on the performance of fellow Novocastrian Ben Kennedy who had a fantastic game in goals for the Jets.
“‘BK’ was superb,” he said. “Everyone watching would have realised that he deserves his spot as our premier keeper – he just kept coming through with crucial saves.”
“We were bombarded for the full 90 minutes and I was lucky enough to be on the end of a great cross from Fabio and put it in the net.”
Hoffman, 20, hoped Newcastle’s stellar performance in the ACL had put to rest the disappointment of last season’s last-place finish in the Hyundai A-League and gave the team plenty of confidence heading into next month’s one-off knockout clash against Group H winners Pohang Steelers.
“Obviously last year’s Hyundai A-League was not a good patch for the club but now we have made it through to the knockout stage of the ACL, only the second Australian team to do so,” Hoffman said.
“I think this team has got a good fighting spirit which is what we need to take us through the further rounds. I feel we have got the squad to do it, we are confident and everyone is looking forward to going back to Korea and playing Pohang straight up.”
“We have played teams off the park and haven’t got a result and then we have not played our best but got a result away from home so I still think there is some finetuning still to come so we have hopefully put last year’s Hyundai A-League season behind us and we are ready to show the world we are a very good footballing team.”
“Hopefully we can follow Adelaide’s lead and go one better.”
