By Wayne Heming
November 26th 2009 @ 2:35am
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Bleiberg needs to pull something special out
He’s got the gift of the gab and Gold Coast United coach Miron Bleiberg will need to use all of his motivational powers for Saturday’s A-League match against Melbourne.
Three of his players are suspended – though Dutch defender Bas Van Den Brink’s four game ban is under review – and another six are injured, leaving Bleiberg with just one specialist central defender in Michael Thwaite to take on the table-topping Victory at Etihad Stadium.
Bleiberg has had to rule a line through his three Brazilians, Robson, Jefferson and Milson as well Daniel Piorkowski, Richard Greer and Ivory Coast attacking fullback Adama Traore.
It’s severely disrupted his build up with only 13 senior players able to train, forcing him to turn to the club’s youth stocks.
Defensive trio Zac Anderson, Ben Wearing and Stephen Topalovic, young forward Golgol Mebrahtu and Youth League captain Steven Lustica are all expected to be included in a preliminary 18-man squad, which will be cut to 15 when the team heads to Melbourne on Friday.
“Miron will have to put some square pegs in a few round holes,” said a Gold Coast official.
“Sometimes in the face of adversity miracles do happen but we will be underdogs.”
The only clash between the two clubs ended in uproar when Melbourne captain Kevin Muscat converted a retaken penalty to snatch a late 2-1 win.
After an embarrassing 4-0 flogging by Central Coast at home, Melbourne scored a 1-0 win over Brisbane Roar at Suncorp Stadium when exciting young goalkeeper Mitch Langerak pulled off a number of impressive saves in his A-League debut.
Langerak, from Emerald in Queensland, got the call up from Victory coach Ernie Merrick against Brisbane after regular `keeper, Kiwi international Glen Moss, had leaked 13 goals — seven in two games.
The 21 year-old grabbed his opportunity with both hands with a polished performance, finishing with only the third clean sheet for the club this season and the first in their past eight games.
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