Pohang Steelers coach Hwang Sun-Hong is anticipating a fired up Adelaide United in tomorrow night’s crucial AFC Champions League match at Hindmarsh Stadium.
The Pohang Steelers are anticipating a fired up Adelaide United outfit in tomorrow night-s crucial AFC Champions League match at Hindmarsh Stadium.
After beating the Reds 1-nil at home earlier this month, the Steelers have reason to go into this match confident they can repeat the dose.
But at the official pre-match media conference earlier today, Pohang coach Hwang Sun-Hong said his side were mindful of Adelaide-s physical and defensive style.
“They are tall, they are strong in the air and they have good defensive organisation,” Hwang said.
“I know that it will be a very difficult game but we have to win so that we can be more comfortable going into our next games.”
Despite their success in the ACL group stage so far, which sees them equal with the Reds on top of Group E, on the domestic front Pohang have slipped to seventh in the K-League standings, coming off a 3-2 loss at home to Jeju United on Saturday, their second successive defeat.
Hwang admitted his side-s heavy schedule, which saw Pohang-s squad touch down in Adelaide yesterday, was taxing on his players but something that they would need to deal with.
“I think that we are going to have some physical troubles in the next game because we have played too many K-League games this month,” Hwang said.
“It was a long trip to get here and our players are feeling a little bit tired, but we-re going to have to prepare properly and fight to win these upcoming matches.”
But just as the Steelers are wary of an improved Adelaide United performance at Hindmarsh, the Reds are just as mindful of their Asian rivals. Despite the limited time Pohang has to acclimatise, Reds captain Eugene Galekovic expects the K-League giants to bring the same pressure that saw them secure the points when the two sides met a fortnight ago.
“When they don-t have the ball they press in the right areas and they press very well as a team…and when they have the ball, it-s very hard to get it back off them,” Galekovic said.
“They-re very good technically and all of their players have good passing ranges, so they-re a good team, we respect them, but we-re playing on our turf tomorrow so hopefully things are a little bit different.”
Kick-off is at 7:30pm and tickets are available through Ticketek.
