Adelaide United beat the Wellington Phoenix 2-0 at Hindmarsh Stadium in a warm-up game to the Hyundai A-League season on Friday night.
The encounter was entertaining with second-half goals to Sergio van Dijk and Lucas Pantelis sealing the win.
Both teams were below strength while the coaching of the Adelaide side was in the hands of assistant coach Paul Stubbins ahead of new coach Rini Coolen’s arrive from the Netherlands on Saturday.
The Reds created several opportunities in the first 45 minutes in a game which proved an end-to-end affair with Patelis just wide for Adelaide in the 22nd minute and Mathew Leckie, who showed good speed in the game, also going close.
Dylan Macallister had a shot cannon off the bar for the Phoenix as he gave young Adelaid goalkeeper Mark Birighitti a scare.
All Whites goalkeeper at the recent World Cup Mark Paston demonstrated his class when keeping out a curling free-kick from Cassio.
However, three minutes into the second half, it was van Dijk who got in front of his marker to head home a Pantelis cross.
The Reds’ second goal came in the 76th minute when Pantelis sliced through the defence, bustling past two defenders to sneak the ball past Paston to score.
Stubbins said afterwards:”In the first half it was a good entertaining encounter and it could have been two or three-all at half-time. They caught us out on a couple of occasions, and we had a chance at half-time to change things around and combat that, and I think we did that.”
“I think we played the game in the right fashion, in good spirit, and I think we really tried to play football. Some of the moves were quite intricate and it’s a credit to the players, they’ve certainly embraced the changes that we’ve tried to bring to the table.”
Adelaide United FC 2 (van Dijk 48′, Pantelis 76′)
Wellington Phoenix 0
Referee: Stephen Toth
Crowd: 1,516 @ Hindmarsh Stadium
