Brazilian midfielder Amaral could be a shock inclusion for the Perth Glory’s clash with Melbourne on Friday night if his paperwork is completed in time.
Speaking on Wednesday morning, Glory coach Dave Mitchell confirmed the 36-year-old had passed all the required fitness tests the club has given him since he paid for his return to Perth a fortnight ago.
Mitchell said the club had no issue with Amaral’s suspect hamstrings, despite having seen the Brazilian suffer a serious hamstring injury in Round 4 last season that ultimately curtailed his entire campaign.
Mitchell said the club was attempting to rush through paperwork allowing Amaral to join the squad for nine matches under the League’s ‘Guest appearance’ rules.
And, he said the 2002 World Cup winner was a possibility to play on Friday night against Melbourne if his application was approved by then.
“We’ve had him tested, fitness wise and we’ve had his hamstrings tested as well so in that, things are looking okay,” Mitchell said.
“He’s looking good, so we’re looking to get some paperwork done for him and there’s a good chance that could be done in the next few days.”
If Amaral’s application is approved, it would seem likely he may play off the bench, as the regulations deem that once a guest stint has been approved, the player can only appear in the next nine matches.
It would seem unlikely that Mitchell would start Amaral, though, considering the Glory are coming off a 2-0 win against Newcastle, where the starting XI appeared particularly solid.
With that in mind, the Brazilian may be selected to play off the bench in place of either Andrija Jukic or Todd Howarth, who was restricted to running laps at training on Wednesday.
After struggling to get his expensively-assembled side working cohesively over the first two rounds, Mitchell was happy with their progress against the Jets, although he concedes the Glory still need to work on creating and converting more chances.
Mitchell said the club’s defence had been very solid for the first three rounds, conceding just one goal from general play, but said the back four faced its toughest test this week against the Victory’s quality attacking players in Archie Thompson, Danny Allsopp and Carlos Hernandez.
“They’ve (Melbourne) not had the best of starts but they’re very formidable,” Mitchell said.
“They’ve got three great strikers there, that if you drop your guard, you just saw last week North Queensland weren’t paying attention and they got in there behind them and bang, they scored 1-0.”
“So they’re always a threat with those strikers and they’re very well organised, they’re a good side.”
The Victory’s undermanned defence has suffered another blow on Wednesday, however, losing the feisty Evan Berger. Berger’s absence is on top of Kevin Muscat’s continued injury woes after the Victory skipper was injured during the club’s Round 1 loss to Central Coast.
