Adelaide United wunderkind Stefan Mauk can only see one A-League winner from here and it’s not his former employers.
The 20-year-old comes face to face with Melbourne City on Friday night for the first time, the side where he played all of his senior football until a move to United in January.
Since then, he’s known only success with Guillermo Amor’s Reds and naturally sees his new side going the distance.
“Everyone’s together. There’s unity. Every player wants to play for each other and I don’t see any teams being able to break that,” he said.
“As long as we do the right things defensively and with the ball, I don’t see too many teams being able to stop us.”
Mauk helped put together City’s spirited start to the season before being traded to his home-town in a cold-hearted trade for Osama Malik.
At this stage, it’s Mauk that has the proved the winner in the deal.
City are the only side Adelaide haven’t played on their 14-match unbeaten streak, and Amor is looking forward to the chance to add them to the tally.
“We are now in first position and we are calm,” he said.
“The players play with more calm, they’re more sure.
“(The City match is) important, a big opportunity for us to win these three points.”
It’s a chance too for United to avenge a 4-2 home defeat to City earlier in the campaign, when Aaron Mooy and Bruno Fornaroli routed the struggling side.
The two sides will be very familiar with each other in the coming weeks.
After Friday night, they meet again on the final weekend of the regular season and are every chance to square off in the finals.
This weekend, both sides will be without key players.
Socceroo fullback Tarek Elrich has a groin strain and is out for the next month while a quad complaint is set to sideline Melbourne’s Anthony Caceres.
City coach John van `t Schip wasn’t sure how long the former Central Coast man would sit on the sidelines after suffering the injury in training.
“He has a little tear (or) strain. He’s going to be available maybe again next week but that’s something that we have to wait (to find out),” he said.
“Maybe it has consequences for other kind of things. We have to fit somebody else in for him.”
Paulo Retre is a like-for-like replacement but a tactical reshuffle could bring in Michael Zullo, Nick Fitzgerald or fit-again centre-back Connor Chapman.
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