Adelaide United have turned the corner from a humiliating A-League season and are capable of matching the best in Asia when the Champions League kicks off on Wednesday, according to Reds coach Aurelio Vidmar.

United finished bottom of the A-League after a string of poor results that demonstrated a terminal lack of confidence or system against staunch opposition.

But creative recruiting and thrifty use of money have given the Reds a stronger squad for the ACL to bolster the confidence that may be drawn from their history-making run to the final last time around.

Vidmar, who will coach the team despite being technically reduced to the role of assistant to Joe Mullen due to a FIFA coaching badge foul-up, said the ACL afforded teams far less margin for error than the A-League but insisted his men could cope.

“We certainly feel that we’ve turned the corner and we’re just going to perform in the best way possible to make sure we perform very well,” Vidmar told AAP.

“What we found, especially last year when you start to play some of the better teams like Gamba Osaka and the Kashima Antlers, they’re so much stronger and fitter and sharper and technically at a different level.

“That’s going to be the danger to everyone and that’s why we need to be on our toes and make sure we’re concentrating for the full 90-95 minutes, because any errors that are made generally get punished.

“If we look back to the first leg of the final against Gamba in Osaka, we played two square balls that got cut out and in a flash, one through-ball destroys your back four and goals are scored.

“Any mistakes you do make (in the ACL) you don’t get away with them.

“In the A-League you make plenty of mistakes and you get away with it, unfortunately in the ACL you won’t.”

New recruits including former Brisbane Roar striker Sergio van Dijk, Adam Griffiths and Argentine Marcos Flores have given the squad an added sheen, and Vidmar credited his staff for finding ways and means of recruiting them despite a shoe-string budget.

“It hasn’t been easy put it that way,” he said.

“The club has done a fantastic job in trying to be creative in a way to find some money to make sure that these players were able to come into our squad.

“Everyone’s done a great job behind the scenes to negotiate with these players and organise visas and a whole array of other things to ensure these boys have got themselves across the line.

“For Adam and Sergio in particular it is a chance for them to put themselves in the shop window, that’s how it is, so it has been a bit of a lure.

“Had we not been in there (the ACL) there probably would’ve been no chance that those boys would have signed.”

© AAP 2012

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