Heading into Wednesday night’s home game against the Pohang Steelers, Coach John Kosmina is sticking firm with how the Reds will look to dismantle the team from South Korea.
Heading into Wednesday night-s home game against the Pohang Steelers, Coach John Kosmina is sticking firm with how the Reds will look to dismantle the team from South Korea.
Having watched the game from his room at the AIS in Canberra, where he was undergoing the first stage of his coaching ‘A- licence, Kosmina noted it was the level of how well his charges held possession and executed the game plan, rather than the game plan itself, that would make the difference.
“The game plan doesn-t need to change, we just need to do it better than we did last time around,” Kosmina stated in regards to what the Reds needed to do to reverse the 1-nil loss they suffered in Pohang.
“We didn-t keep the ball and that was the issue. We didn-t keep the ball well enough and we kept turning it over and you can-t build any momentum but you allow the other team to gain momentum.”
“In these games you need to be aggressive mentally and I don-t know if we were as assertive mentally as we could have been.”
Pohang-s eagerness to press and pressure any United player in possession at the Steelyard meant the Reds struggled to keep hold of the ball in the times that they actually did have it.
But with the Steelers flying to the much warmer climate of Adelaide just days after playing in the K-League, Kosmina expects the Reds- plan of attack to be more effective.
Considering Pohang-s winning goal came from a Eugene Galekovic mistake, there is definitely no reason for the Reds to panic as the defensive part of their game for the most part has held up well.
While the Reds- focus is currently on the Asian stage, Kosmina was also willing to weigh in on the predicament surrounding the Newcastle Jets and the state of the game following the announcement that mining magnate Nathan Tinkler-s Hunter Sports Group had decided to return the club-s licence to the FFA.
Never one to shy away from giving his view on matters involving the game that he loves, particularly when it is on the domestic football scene, Kosmina strongly backed the state of where the game and the Hyundai A-League finds itself in despite this latest turn of events.
“I was here at the start of the NSL in 1977 and the game is a lot healthier now than it was back then, certainly in terms of where it-s positioned in the Australian sporting landscape, so I think we-re far better off,” Kosmina, who made 289 appearances and scored 133 goals in Australia-s premier domestic competition between 1977 and 1988 said.
“The league needs to consolidate itself, it-s still very young. In reality it is still only seven years old…so I think the Newcastle issue will resolve itself. There are enough people in the Hunter Valley that care about football.”
