The North Queensland Fury will happily carry the underdog tag into their encounter with Gold Coast United at Skilled Park on Saturday night.
It is the first time the Hyundai A-League’s two newest franchises will go head to head in a regular season match.
Tensions have been high between the two fledgling clubs from the beginning, igniting further after United pulled out of a planned pre-season encounter in Cairns.
After an off-field tussle the game was rescheduled at the Gold Coast where United claimed a 2-0 victory.
The Gold Coast is going in as heavy favourites following its impressive 3-1 victory over the Roar, while the Fury remain winless after a painful 3-2 defeat at the hands of Sydney FC.
“I’m not allowed to bet, so I might tell my wife to put a couple of bucks on,” Ferguson joked.
“We’re a brand new franchise; they’re a brand new franchise. They’ve come in and won a game, we’ve come in and lost a game so the bookies are right, they’re favourites and hot favourites at that,” he admitted.
But the bookies’ long odds haven’t crushed the Fury’s hopes of an upset.
“I’ve already been asked this question … do you think you’re going to win? Of course I think I’m going to win, I wouldn’t turn up otherwise … just give Gold Coast the points and save everybody the trouble of travelling down there,” Ferguson said.
“Definitely we think we’re going to win.”
The playing group shares the coach’s sentiments with defender John Tambouras keen to avenge the pre-season defeat.
“We tend not to worry about them so much,” Tambouras said.
“We look at it as what we have to do … once you start worrying about the other team you’re already behind the eight ball.”
“They are probably favourites to win but we’ll take the underdog tag, we’ve had the underdog tag right through pre-season.”
“We’ve got a lot of doubters out there but we’re keen to prove everyone wrong.”
