Adelaide United is hopeful of signing Socceroo Adrian Madaschi for the 2009-10 Hyundai A-League season.
Reds coach Aurelio Vidmar said the club had presented a deal to the 27-year-old, who is currently with Italian Serie C1 side Portogruaro-Summaga, and is now waiting for his decision. The club is also courting another Australian player who’s abroad but will not reveal his name at this stage.
“We’ve given our best offer and it’s whether they want to leave what they are doing overseas to come back,” Vidmar said.
“It’s frustrating because as much as we’d love them here, and those types of players are going to strengthen the squad … unfortunately we have to play the waiting game with them.”
United has until August 31 to sign players but with its season starting against Perth Glory on August 7, Vidmar wants to finalise his squad sooner rather than later.
“So we do have time in terms of that date but really we don’t have enough time before the season starts,” he said.
Madaschi would add strength to a revamped Reds defensive line-up which is without Sasa Ognenovski (Seongnam Ilhwa), Ang Costanzo (Newcastle Jets) and Michael Valkanis (retirement).
Despite his interest in Madaschi, Vidmar said he was optimistic the current players in his back third could be as miserly as their predecessors.
“We need to do a fair bit of work. But I’ve got the utmost confidence in the boys that are there at the moment. (Robbie) Cornthwaite, Fyfey (Iain Fyfe), Michael Marrone is just a young kid, Daniel Mullen also had a fair bit of experience last year and Scotty Jamieson was a fantastic player for last year,” he said.
“I’m very confident they will do a very good job, we just need some depth in the squad just in case something happens to one of those boys, so we can just replace them at a drop of a hat.”
Meanwhile Adelaide United is raring to go after taking part in a long pre-season. In the past two years ACL commitments have given the players little respite but this winter their sole focus has been on starting the Hyundai A-League season strongly.
Vidmar said the extra time off brought new challenges for the squad.
“It has been long and sometimes it’s very difficult to motivate the players for 15-16 weeks in a campaign but that’s how it is,” he said.
“We know it’s probably going to take a couple of weeks until they get that consistent match practice before they hit their straps.”
