Despite Adelaide United’s 1-0 loss to Melbourne City on Friday night, Captain Eugene Galekovic stressed the importance of resilience for the team’s next match away to Western Sydney Wanderers on Saturday.
The defeat ended the Reds’ 14 game unbeaten streak, but Galekovic said that it was an opportunity to see where things needed to improve.
“You have to give credit to City because they came here with a game plan and they were really good on the day,” he said.
“But we’ve gone over the game and spoken about what needs to improve, and the focus is now solely on how to best go about dealing with the threat of the Wanderers.
“It’s very hard to go on a long run because when you finally lose it’s easy for heads to drop immediately, but we haven’t let that happen,” he said.
A win this week would see the Reds jump their opposition in what is a very congested top half of the table, with the finals series just around the corner.
Galekovic celebrated his 250th appearance as a Red on Friday night, and despite the loss, said it was fantastic to have been at the club for so long.
“It was an unfortunate result but I’ve never personally been too big on milestones, so I’m just happy that I’ve been here for such a long time.”
With Elrich set to miss another few weeks, and injury clouds over Carrusca and Pablo Sanchez, Galekovic has called upon younger members of his squad to continue stepping up and performing at the top level.
“You look at players like Mauk, Elsey and Kamau and they’ve come in and done a great job for the team,” he said.
“We’ve had these guys come in throughout the season and they have taken their chances well, and will again be ready if called upon come the weekend.
“A positive thing is that our injured players should not be out for the rest of the season, and there are still quite a few games left to play.”
Adelaide United will face Western Sydney Wanderers in Round 24 of the Hyundai A-League 2015/16 season on Saturday, 19 March at Pirtek Stadium. Kick-off is at 7.00pm ACDT.
