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The heartache of Australia’s Asian Cup final loss has been tempered somewhat for Jason Culina by a specialist’s promising report on his injured knee.
Initially considered no chance of chiming into the rest of Gold Coast United’s A-League season, Culina on Tuesday kept his fingers crossed that he could become a finals X-factor.
Culina revealed he only underwent minor “clean-up” surgery in Sydney despite being forced to leave the Socceroos’ Asian Cup campaign after aggravating the knee during the side’s 1-1 pool draw with South Korea.
He believed it kept the door open for a finals tilt – a major shot in the arm for United with their top six placing still in limbo.
United currently sit in fourth spot with 42 points but have two games in hand behind runaway ladder leaders Brisbane Roar (59pts) – starting with Wednesday night’s Skilled Park blockbuster against Adelaide.
In all, they face four games in the next two weeks that will decide their final ladder placing.
“It looks like I will be out for the next few weeks at least,” Culina told AAP.
“I will push myself for the finals but I can’t promise anything.
“It is a matter of getting stronger and recovering ASAP but I am hoping I can catch the back end of the finals – time will tell.
“But so far so good. I have been able to keep training with the team which is something I wanted to do.
“Overall I am pretty satisfied with how it has all gone.”
Culina will be a nervous onlooker in the next couple of weeks knowing the higher United finish on the table the better chance they are to go deeper into the finals, increasing his comeback chances.
“I have said all along we have one of the best teams in the league, if not the best – I believe we can go all the way,” he said.
“At the moment results haven’t gone our way in recent weeks but tomorrow is the start of four important games which I think we can do well in.”
Despite his encouraging medical report, Culina was still smarting from Australia’s 1-0 extra-time Asian Cup final loss to Japan at Qatar.
“We definitely outplayed Japan in that final and deserved to win but things didn’t go our way – that is football,” he said.
In more good news for United, midfielder Bas van den Brink is expected to be sidelined for just one week after going down in a tackle from Victory’s Grant Brebner in last weekend’s 2-0 away loss.
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