Prior to Adelaide United’s 2-0 home loss to Gold Coast United at Hindmarsh Stadium, their coach Aurelio Vidmar claimed the Coast will have underachieved if they do not win the A-League by 15 points.
Having seen them up close in a match where the Reds were unable to fire a shot for an hour, by which point they were already 2-0 down, he made a slight revision of that view.
“I was a bit generous to be honest,” he said. “It’ll probably be 25 (points).”
The performance of the team coached by Miron Bleiberg was so consummate as to earn comparisons with that of Japanese outfit Gamba Osaka, who wrapped up their Asian Champions League crown with a similarly dominant and technically proficient display at Hindmarsh late last year.
Vidmar said the visitors had played in a similar manner to last year’s victorious Melbourne Victory combination, their fluid midfield movement causing no end of trouble for a usual tight Adelaide defence.
“Certainly for the first 60 minutes, absolutely,” Vidmar said on whether his team had been outclassed.
“Then we decided to come out and play.
“I thought we were certainly timid in the 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.
“Gold Coast were very good in that first 60 minutes and never really let us settle on the ball.
“I think there was a lack of belief in the first half.
“I think that’s a good lesson for us in terms of we always try to tell our boys to move the ball quickly and move as you saw tonight, the first half was extremely fast and that’s what they’re very good at.
“They’re very similar to what Melbourne were last year with that movement through the midfield.”
Gold Coast skipper Jason Culina said Adelaide had seen some of his side’s best football, but stressed it was still early in the season.
“Tonight was probably a glimpse of our best football, last week we played really well and scored more goals and perhaps there’s more improvement,” he said.
“We’ll just keep working hard and the good form and the rhythm will come and hopefully as the season goes on you see some even better football being played.”
Bleiberg’s post-match complaints about being misrepresented in the media, who have given wide airing to some of his more outlandish comments, should not take anything away from the fact his side are raising the standard of the game in Australia.
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