Melbourne Heart midfielder Jason Hoffman hopes confidence gained from his selection in a national training squad for Hyundai A-League players will turn into solid form for his club.
Melbourne Heart midfielder Jason Hoffman hopes confidence gained from his selection in a national training squad for Hyundai A-League players will turn into solid form for his club.
The 22-year-old attended the camp, run by Qantas Socceroos coach Holger Osieck and Australian U23s coach Aurelio Vidmar, in Sydney on Monday and Tuesday along with Heart teammates David Williams and Brendan Hamill.
Hoffman said being involved in the training programme had given his confidence a boost, and said he took a lot from his involvement despite the short duration of his stay in Sydney.
“It was definitely very humbling for myself and also David and Brendan from the club,” Hoffman said.
“It’s always fantastic if you’ve got someone like Holger whose watching the games and he picks you out to go to a camp.”
“In saying that, it was only very quick, and it was more of a get-to-know Holger and the way he likes to play.”
“Obviously it’s hard to have a camp during the A-League season but I thought it was definitely good. If you’re going to things like that it gives you confidence to go forward, and back to your clubs to perform well.”
After narrow losses to Newcastle and Perth in their opening two games, Hoffman said his team had been buoyed by their 0-0 draw with Melbourne Victory in Saturday’s derby, and revealed Saturday night’s clash with Sydney FC at AAMI Stadium had been at the forefront of his thoughts while away.
“We couldn’t wait to get back to be honest, and just enjoy the week leading up to the Sydney game,” he said.
“We took a lot of positives out of the derby and we feel like we’re getting very close to that goal that’s going to get us the three points.”
“We were pumped up for the Victory game, and we expected them to be quite good, and after the way the game panned out we’re definitely expecting Sydney to probably be a harder challenge.”
“That group’s going to be fairly confident after their performance in Adelaide (a 2-1 win on Saturday).”
Hoffman said he was looking forward to being at full fitness for the Sydney match, after a bout of food poisoning kept him out of the Glory game and saw him start on the bench against Victory.
“I was rattled a bit with a bit of food poisoning and I lost a fair bit of weight in 24 hours,” he said.
“When you’re pretty lean as it is, it’s hard when you lose 3-4kg overnight to put it back on.”
“My energy was down for the Perth game and I tried to do as much as I could before the derby and ended up getting myself pretty close to where I should be.”
“Now the kilos are back on and the energy’s back and I’m feeling really good.”
