Adelaide United have played out a 2-2 draw with reigning Youth League champions Gold Coast United after surrendering an early lead at Burton Park on Saturday afternoon.
Adelaide United have played out a 2-2 draw with reigning Youth League champions Gold Coast United after surrendering an early lead at Burton Park on Saturday afternoon.
The Baby Reds put themselves in the box seat early when Teeboy Kamara fresh off his Hyundai A-League debut for the first-team the night before found the net in the opening minutes.
The youngest A-League debutant in history, who impressed in his brief appearance for Adelaide in their 3-0 loss to the Gold Coast on Friday, was put through on goal with just the keeper beat, where he made no mistake racing into the box before finishing coolly giving the Baby Reds an early lead.
It didn’t take long for Kamara to find his and the team’s second, minutes later when he capped off an intelligent team move.
Adelaide worked the ball through the middle before moving out wide with a sequence of passes, before the ball was squared from the right-wing to set up Kamara with a simple tap-in finish.
The game looked like becoming a blowout for Gold Coast until they pulled a goal back right on half-time, courtesy of U-17 Joey representative Mitch Cooper.
The goal gave the back-to-back Youth League champions a way back into the game as they pressured a resilient Adelaide side, who thwarted the Queensland side’s attacks with relative ease.
However a brief lapse in concentration allowed Eritrean striker Gol-Gol Mebrahtu to equalise as both sides had to be content with a point in the closing stages.
Baby Reds coach Michael Valkanis said that despite the stalemate he was impressed with his side particular in the first-half against a Gold Coast team that featured a number of over-age senior players.
“I think we started off the game very well, we played some good football and our young team did quite well against a Gold Coast with a few senior players in their team,” Valkanis said.
“Unfortunately for us we conceded a minute before half-time, which was not the ideal time to concede as it probably got the Gold Coast back into the game.”
“In the second-half we worked very hard and I thought we were quite compact, and they weren-t causing any problems for us – if anything we were keeping the ball as much we could.”
“But unfortunately a minute lapse in concentration cost us a second goal.”
Although sending out a predominantly young side, Valkanis did have senior players Evgeniy Levchenko, Ricardo Da Silva and Cameron Watson at his disposal.
Levchenko played 45 minutes as he continues to make a comeback from injury, while Da Silva featured for just over an hour. Watson ran out the entirety of the 90 minutes even after having played 20 minutes for the senior team on Friday – a feat that did not go unrecognised by Valkanis.
“Cameron Watson once again did really well – he is one of those players you can build a culture around at a club,” Valkanis said.
“He was not supposed to play 90 minutes but he put up his hand to do so and he’s now done that two weeks in a row, which is a credit to his professionalism.”
Valkanis also heaped praise on Kamara following another impressive youth league performance that is sure to push his case to Adelaide United coach Rini Coolen for further senior selection.
Valkanis said he was equally impressed with the 15-year-old’s attitude and mentality to have to come back down from the big time to play youth league.
“Teeboy has progressed from the first very game where he was dropped to make sure that he would work a little harder and turn up to every session,” Valkanis said.
“Ever since then he has taken a lot on board and been fantastic, and it was reward for him on Friday night to come on for the seniors.”
“He’s done extremely well and he’s shown again Saturday that he has got the qualities to being play at higher level and potential to be a very good A-League player, if not a Socceroo one day.”
“I was very interested to see after having played for the seniors Friday night what his mindset would be turning up for the youth league, but he turned up focused and played quite well, showing qualities to why he was picked for the A-League team.”
