Adelaide City v Adelaide Olympic
PlayStation4 National Premier Leagues South Australia

When: Saturday, June 11 2016 at 3 PM.
Where: Adelaide City Park, Cnr Fosters & Hilltop Road, OAKDEN

Teams:

Adelaide City:  1. Ryan Veitch (GK), 2. Michael Acton, 3. Alexander Sunasky, 4. Shane Tobias, 5. Matthew Halliday (C), 6. Jordan Pudler, 7. Joel Allwright, 8. Paul Blefari, 9. Anthony Costa, 10. Nikola Mileusnic, 11. Nicholas Bucco, 12. Lewis Farquhar, 16. Thomas Love, 17. Mamadi Kamara, 18. Joshua Mori, 22. Matthew Moore

Adelaide Olympic: Christos Pounendis, Shigeyuki Sogo, Thomas Brown, David Makridis, Gino De Lucia (GK), Lewis Vallelonga, Jairus Wyten, Christopher Mara, Oliver Totani, Kosta Mantis, Matthew Bouzalas, George Hristakopoulos, Fausto Erba

Form:

Adelaide City: W W W

Round 11: Adelaide City 3-0 MetroStars, Adelaide City Park.
Round 12: Croydon Kings 0-1 Adelaide City, Polonia Reserve.
Round13: West Adelaide 1-2 Adelaide City, Adelaide Shores Football Centre.

Adelaide Olympic: L D L

Round 11: Adelaide Olympic 0-2 Adelaide United FC, Elite System Football Centre.
Round 12: Adelaide Olympic 3-3 West Adelaide, Elite Systems Football Centre.
Round 13: Adelaide Olympic 4-5 Adelaide Blue Eagles, Elite Systems Football.

Preview:

League leaders Adelaide City face Adelaide Olympic in Round 14 of the PlayStation 4 National Premier Leagues South Australia at Adelaide City Park this Saturday.

City sit three points ahead Campbelltown City after defeating West Adelaide 2-1 last weekend.

Midfielder Thomas Love was very impressed with his team’s performance, especially in the second half.

“The second half especially showed, what kind of team we are actually,” Love said,” like determination and the will to actually win and not giving up,(it) really shows the character of the team we are trying to be.”

“So yeah, we’re very impressed by the win on the weekend.”

Going through a four game winning streak, City’s confidence is being further buoyed by the team’s belief in its own abilities, as Love explains:

“We’ve got such depth in our squad, everyone is confident in everyone’s ability,” he said.

“When we go out there (the field), we go out there to work for each other, it’s not everyone working for themselves; they all work for the team,”

“And as the results have been going our way, it shows that’s working for us.

“We’re on top at the moment and for the rest of the season, that’s where we want to stay.”

Love is hopeful that City will remain on top and doubts that complacency will enter the team.

“With the quality we’ve got in our team, I don’t think we’re going to be overconfident,” he said.

“We’re happy where we at the moment and we know we have to go into every game thinking ’we want to win it’.

“And I think we’ve got the ability to so.

“So hopefully, that’s the case for the rest of the season.”

Love respects Olympic and ensures that City will approach the upcoming game like any other.

“Obviously they’ve got some sort of quality in their team,” he said.

“They were promoted last year, so they obviously deserved to be in this league.

“We can’t afford to think of lesser than anyone else.

“We have to think of our game and not of anyone else’s.”

Unlike City, Olympic’s results haven’t gone their way with the team having lost two of their last three games, the most recent being a narrow 5-4 defeat to Adelaide Blue Eagles.

Olympic striker Fausto Erba says that the last game against Blue Eagles was very much a game of two halves.

“We didn’t play our best game, especially the first half,” Erba said, “we gave too much space to them.”

“(In) the second half it was much better with a good reaction, but we are disappointed because we threw away 45 minutes.”

Despite recent inconsistencies, Erba believes his team is in good shape saying, “we are in good condition and we work every week to do better”.

According to Erba, the team needs to work on one thing: mentality.

“We just need to improve our mentality in some situations because we have the quality to do better, but we are positive,” he said.

In regards to City, Erba is wary, but ready.

“We play against a top team and it will be a tough game, but we are ready,” he said.

“If we stay concentrated and all the team work hard, we can do everything.”

Written by Christopher Munker