Adelaide United Captain Eugene Galekovic hailed his side’s fighting spirit in holding league-leaders Western Sydney Wanderers to a draw on Friday night.
The Reds created some great chances – especially in the first half – to be great value for the 0-0 draw but were forced to soak up some late pressure to preserve their point at Pirtek Stadium.
Wanderers held by Reds at Pirtek
“Credit to the boys, we held on in the end when we were under the pump a little bit,” Galekovic told Fox Sports afterwards.
“They [Wanderers] had a lot of possession and we fought for 90 minutes to get a point.”
Adelaide has now gone five games without defeat to sit just outside the top six heading into the second half of the A-League season.
Their up-turn in form has coincided with Galekovic’s return from injury and an improvement in their defensive resolve over the last month.
“We were conceding a lot of goals. We knew to win games you have to give yourselves a chance and go in at halftime with a 0-0 or a 1-0 lead,” the experienced gloveman explained.
“That’s what we’ve been doing the last few weeks. We’re fighting and we got a point away to Western Sydney which is tough to do and we go with confidence next week to Perth.
“We’re gaining confidence with every game we play with the results we’re getting. We had our chances and we could have had a penalty.”
The incident Galekovic was referring to came in the first half, when defender Michael Marrone’s driving run into the box ended with him going to ground under a challenge from Wanderers skipper Nikolai Topor-Stanley.
“I haven’t seen the replay yet but I felt like I got touched,” Marrone said.
“I didn’t try to go to ground. I thought I got touched but he didn’t give it so that’s football.
“We’ll take a draw tonight, we weren’t at our best, they [Wanderers] probably deserved to win to be honest but it could have been a different game as well.”
