Reds defeat a ‘disgrace’, blasts Vidmar
By Guy Hand, 15 Feb 2009
- Tagged:
- A-League, Adelaide United, Aurelio Vidmar, football, Melbourne Victory
Adelaide United coach Aurelio Vidmar has blamed political infighting at his club for their 4-0 A-League major semi-final second leg defeat to Melbourne Victory, saying the team was beaten before it even took to Telstra Dome on Saturday night.
Vidmar appeared close to breaking point as he launched an astonishing post-match attack on all segments of the club following a defeat which earned the Victory a home grand final.
He refused to name anyone specifically, but fingered players, officials, and even media as he vented his spleen on “everyone involved with the club”, and the politics he blamed for tearing the Reds down.
“It was an absolute disgrace,” Vidmar said of the defeat.
“We owe the world an apology.
“Politics is what I put it down to. There’s too many people at this club with hidden agendas.
“That 4-0 result tonight was politics, nothing else. This club will never win anything until you get rid of that crap.
“This was a very happy place until a few weeks ago.”
It is a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for Adelaide and Vidmar, who was named A-League coach of the year a fortnight ago after guiding the Reds to the Asian Champions League final and second place in the A-League.
Now Vidmar is demanding crisis talks to sort out Adelaide’s problems on Monday, as the Reds try to regroup ahead of a sudden-death preliminary final at Hindmarsh Stadium next Saturday against in-form Queensland Roar.
“There needs to be a massive heart-to-heart Monday morning,” Vidmar said.
“You’ve either got balls or you don’t have balls. We’ll see who has and who hasn’t.
“We actually want people out there who are going to play football and not worry about anything else.
“We need people around the club who are thinking of the right things. Football, nothing else.”
The club has had several on and off-field changes of late, including announcing the departures of a number of key players at the end of the season.
Defender Angelo Costanzo will join Newcastle next season, while midfielders Diego and Jonas Salley have been released, marquee striker Paul Agostino and defender Mike Valkanis are retiring and defender Sasa Ognenovski will join South Korean side Seongnam Ilhwa.
The Reds’ miserable night was compounded further by the late send-off of Brazilian midfielder Cassio for a second yellow card offence.
Cassio is also likely to face the wrath of the match review panel for making a rude arm gesture to Victory fans as he left the field.
The post-match fireworks took some of the gloss off a scintillating performance by the Victory which brought back memories of their 6-0 hammering of the Reds in the grand final at the same venue two years ago.
The Victory’s 4-0 win gave them a 6-0 aggregate triumph in the two-legged tie to grab home ground advantage for the grand final on February 28, and a chance to become the first club to win two A-League championships.
They had their spot in the grand final wrapped up by halftime.
Costa Rican midfielder Carlos Hernandez, who only returned to Australia on match morning following World Cup duty in Central America midweek, inspired Melbourne’s win.
He scored one goal and created two others, before being substituted on the hour with the Victory’s mission accomplished.
© AAP 2012Recommend this story.
- Explore:
- A-League, Adelaide United, Aurelio Vidmar, football, Melbourne Victory
February 15th 2009 @ 8:37am
Tifosi FC said | February 15th 2009 @ 8:37am | Report comment
Whats that saying? Never air your dirty laundry in public.
AV, to blame everyone else for Adelaide’s troubles against Melbourne is a cop-out and to say it in the public domain is a disgrace. I know he would have been upset about the performance but that is no excuse.
You have insulted the people of adelaide( that was the worst part of his conference) and brought the A-league into disrepute.
The FFA should fine you for such comments.
Saying that he did mention the club was a happy place until three weeks ago. Something must have happened. Any clues anyone?
February 15th 2009 @ 8:43am
dasilva said | February 15th 2009 @ 8:43am | Report comment
Tifosi FC
I think he was blaming the entire club for the performance “not everyone else’. He says the problem includes everyone involved with the club including himself.
http://sportal.com.au/mediaplayer/audio/Football/aurelio-vidmars-extraordinary-outburst-after-4593
Here is an audio recording of the rant in full.
February 15th 2009 @ 9:54am
jimbo said | February 15th 2009 @ 9:54am | Report comment
What an extraordinary and intriguing outburst from Vidmar.
Shows a lack of maturity and obvious disharmony within the club.
Politics? Is he saying the players lost on purpose because of politics?
But as a manager you shouldn’t let it get to you. You get on with the job and keep the players protected from ”all the crap” – not get them involved in it. You save those outbursts for after you get sacked.
Will be interesting to see what the fans think of all this and if they will turn up in numbers for the Preliminary Final at Hindmarsh.
I think Vidmar has got to take a lot of the blame.
One of his best defenders (Costanzo) hasn’t played for weeks, presumably I suppose because of something he said. Who’s playing politics?
Ogenovski should have been marking Allsopp, not Cornflakes.
Barbiero should’ve started the game and marked Hernandez – all 4 goals came from Hernandez and each time he had at least 10 metres to work in.
Alemao did nothing and defensively he was very weak.
But a week is a long time in football and I think the players will still have the drive to want to beat the Roar and get back into the Golden Toilet Seat decider.
They couldn’t lose 6 nil against MV for a third time in two years – could they?
February 15th 2009 @ 10:20am
Ronnie from Lonnie said | February 15th 2009 @ 10:20am | Report comment
Ouch … even MV supporters such as myself would surely hope Vidmar has not SERIOUSLY damaged the AU ‘brand’, especially after last year’s hard work in getting the city behind the team. A year of positive publicity thrown away in a matter of seconds.
Given AU has waged 2 arduous and exacting campaigns since March last year, it’d be fair to say the strains & stresses that go with this have probably cracked the team and it’s manager. Everybody has a breaking point. Vidmar must be gutted to see his team go backwards since raeching the pinnacle of the AFC CL final. I hope all he was doing was trying to give his players a wakeup call for next week’s game.
I’d also really like to congratulate ‘The Herald Sun’ and ‘The Age’ for their wonderful leadup coverage to last night’s game. It was CRAP. The Age’s sports cover story was a fluffy piece on Nick Riewoldt, the HS’s about the return of Wayne Carey to North Melbourne (ugh, another WC story! Leave him alone!). All of interest to StKFC and NMFC supporters, I’m sure. However, other readers might well have been interested to know MVFC were playing AUFC in Melbourne that night, even if it was a dead rubber. I’ve just wasted my last hard-earned on those 2 publications!
February 15th 2009 @ 12:09pm
Dave said | February 15th 2009 @ 12:09pm | Report comment
RFL
Agreed re; the poor pre match media coverage…l only get the Age and that preview was tucked 3-4 pages in…l dont look at the HS but a mate said there was very little in it.
So 35,000 was a very good crowd, noisy and colorful and it is interesting to note most fans now wear MV gear…in the first few years many fans wore EPL or other Euro team gear. There has been a big change and the MV brand is getting stronger.
Also like to pay credit to the couple of hundred AU supporters decked in red. Their signs before the game re bushfires were very touching and drew a lot of comment and praise from the crowd around us. The minutes silence was impecable and both sets of fans should be congratulated.
At least todays Age has the lead sports page photo on MVs win.
February 15th 2009 @ 12:10pm
Gareth said | February 15th 2009 @ 12:10pm | Report comment
I dont think anyone can decipher what is going on in Adelaide (Especially the fans). Somebody has fucked up somewhere whether it be the coach, certain players or the board. It would be easy to blame Vidmar but then I dont know the role of players like Costanzo, Dodd, Valkanis and their influence on sections of the team. Vidmar will be gone for his comments and hopefully whoever is causing the dis-harmony pissess off too. All the good work the club has done over the past 12 months has been thrown out the window in one poorly worded rant.
February 15th 2009 @ 1:00pm
hazza said | February 15th 2009 @ 1:00pm | Report comment
You can extend the poor match coverage to the so called sports station SEN. Their coverage of the Victory this week has been pathetic. Covering that crap NAB CUP is there excuse. I believe the AFL has shares in the company that owns SEN. It smells something very dirty in my opinion. Anyway why would anyone in this day and age buy that toilet paper of a newspaper HERALD SUN. Its the propaganda arm of the AFL.
February 15th 2009 @ 1:31pm
Norm said | February 15th 2009 @ 1:31pm | Report comment
- “Anyway why would anyone in this day and age buy that toilet paper of a newspaper HERALD SUN. Its the propaganda arm of the AFL.”…I guess hazza AFL fans would…
February 15th 2009 @ 4:24pm
jimbo said | February 15th 2009 @ 4:24pm | Report comment
How long before the Rebecca Wilson “Shame Sokka, Shame Aurellio Vidmar” piece of in depth sports journalism hits the News Limited selection of fine toilet papers.
February 15th 2009 @ 7:15pm
Koala Bear said | February 15th 2009 @ 7:15pm | Report comment
Well that was timely; it looks like the pathway is now clear for Kossie to return to AU FC …
~~~~~~~~
KB