A refreshed Adelaide United believes it has managed its squad well enough to beat the Kashima Antlers in its home leg of the AFC Champions League quarter final.
The Reds are preparing for their fourth game in 13 days and will need to be at their best to overcome their highly-fancied Japanese opponent.
United lost its last game against Sydney FC at the weekend after resting eight of its first-choice players. The sacrificial selection policy was aimed at refreshing the team’s personnel ahead of Wednesday’s Hindmarsh Stadium clash.
It appears to have worked with captain Travis Dodd feeling ‘surprisingly good’ after having a break. He said the other players were also fairing well despite their busy workload.
“To the credit of the coaching staff and the medical staff they’ve put a lot of steps into process in regards to recovery and it seems to be working,” he said.
“I know after the Japan game I felt pretty good apart from the knock, the rest of the body was quite good and the boys are feeling as refreshed as they can and we are just really excited.”
The Reds are in the box seat to progress to the semi-final after notching up an important away goal against the Antlers last week.
Dodd said he was optimistic his side would be able to produce the goods in front of a big home crowd.
“I think we put pressure on ourselves to succeed. We want to succeed, we want to do well not only for ourselves but for the league and for Australian football,” he said.
“We don’t want to go out there and play for a draw. The mindset has got to be right, and it will be, and we are going out there for a positive result.”
“They have to come here and score goals … if nothing else it’s going to be an action-packed game …I think it will be a very entertaining game to watch.”
United coach Aurelio Vidmar was also pleased with the progress of his players since the team’s loss to Sydney.
“Obviously you don’t like to be beaten 3-0 but that’s the way it goes sometimes in football. We came back yesterday, back to training and everyone was in good spirits,” he said.
“We had a nice bright training session and we’ll have another one tonight.
“There’s not too much time you can dwell and analyse what happened on Saturday … we have to quickly bounce back and get back into it.”
Vidmar said the quarter final was ‘still in the balance’ and added his team would still be playing for a win rather than a draw.
“You can’t play for a 0-0 draw because once you set yourself up like that and you go a goal behind, it’s very difficult to break that mindset and try to get forward,” he said.
“If we can play as we did (last week), up to that level, then I’m very confident that we can get a result.”
