Adelaide United coach Aurelio Vidmar has drawn comparisons between Gold Coast United and Melbourne Victory’s Hyundai A-League championship side of 2009 after his team went down to the new franchise 2-0 at Hindmarsh Stadium on Friday.
The Coast continued to live up to expectations, combining both attack and defence to produce a convincing win over the Reds.
Vidmar said Gold Coast outclassed his side when the game was there to be won.
“They are very similar to what Melbourne was last year with that movement through the midfield; certainly we struggled with that last year with Melbourne,” Vidmar said.
“I thought our structure was pretty good tonight but still those boys in the midfield Caravella and even Pantelidis and Thwaite, who are not renowned midfielders, certainly did a very good job for them.”
“I think we were certainly timid in that first 60 minutes and a big part of that was not being able to retain the ball and that’s certainly one area we need to pay a lot more attention to and care a little bit more.”
But while Gold Coast has hit the ground running, Vidmar said Adelaide’s performance proved Miron Bleiberg’s line-up is not infallible.
The Reds had a chance to get back into the contest during the second half but squandered opportunities.
“I think everyone is beatable as you can see how we played in that last 30 minutes you can put anyone under pressure. You can have Real Madrid coming here and you put them under pressure they are going to turn the ball over, and the Gold Coast are no different,” he said.
“The last 30 minutes was some of the good football and how we can play and we created some very good chances.”
“I think in all games that we’ve played, up to this point, we’ve always been good for at least a couple of goals but unfortunately we’re quite rusty at this point of time in front of goal.”
Adelaide United captain Travis Dodd said his team may have paid the Coast too much respect in the first half.
“We talked all week, they are just 11 players out there, they are no different to us and I think we certainly played against better in Champions League, we’ve come up against quicker opponents but maybe we bought into the hype too much with their talking and we’ll learn from that,” he said.
Meanwhile the contributions of Daniel Mullen, in his first game back from hamstring problems, and Lloyd Owusu were positives for the Reds.
Vidmar is hopeful Owusu will add something in the front third given the side has only managed to score once this season.
“I think it was a positive sign for Lloydy to come on and I think he was a handful and you can see he is always thinking, especially around the box, when he was there just letting things run past him,” he said.
“I think Lucas had a (scoring) occasion and Cristiano had an occasion and Hughesy had a very good occasion just through Lloydy being around the six-yard box.”
Cassio is struggling to shake the flu and missed his second game on Friday while an abductor injury kept out Paul Reid although Vidmar said the midfielder is rapidly improving. Both are some chance for next week.
