Croydon Kings v Adelaide Blue Eagles
South Australia PlayStation4 National Premier League Round 4

When: Saturday, March 7. Kick - off at 7pm
Where: Polonia Reserve, 7 Essex Crescent, CROYDON PARK.

Teams:

Croydon Kings: 17 A. Boccaccio, 18 J. Brazzale, 4 M. Doyle, 6 N. Farrell, 12 D. Gazettas, 13 M. Kamara, 5 L. Klimek, 19 L. May, 7 S. Mcgreevy, 1 N. Munro, 10 C. Pepe, 14 S. Pepper, 11 F. Violi, 8 R. Visconte

Adelaide Blue Eagles: C. Annicchiarico, S. Annicchiarico, C. Atsikbasis, M. Balsamo, J. Boyokino, M. Catford, M. Charalambous, D. Crettenden, M. Dawber, A. Dimas, F. Filletti, J. Giannitto, A. Harris, K. Harris, S. Hutton-Addy, A. Kebede ,H. Kochi, P. Piantedosi, A. Rastovac, J. Shyti, S. Viola

Form:

Croydon Kings: W W D

Round 1: Croydon 2 -1 Metro Stars, Polonia Reserve
Round 2: Pirates 2 - 4 Croydon Kings, Pirate Park
Round 3: Croydon Kings 1 - 1 Modbury Jets, Polonia Reserve

Adelaide Blue Eagles: W W W

Round 1: Adelaide City 1 - 4 Adelaide Blue Eagles, Adelaide City Park
Round 2: Adelaide Blue Eagles 6 - 0 Modbury Jets, Marden Sports Complex
Round 3: White City 1 - 4 Adelaide Blue Eagles, Frank Mitchell Park

Preview:

Croydon Kings welcome current league leaders Adelaide Blue Eagles to Polonia Reserve for the top of the table clash of the South Australia PlayStation4 National Premier League Round 4 fixture this Saturday night.

The reigning champions suffered a surprise 1-1 draw to the winless Modbury Jets, whilst the Blue Eagles recorded their third consecutive win with a 4-1 thrashing of White City.

And while the Blue Eagles may be flying high on confidence, Yvan Boyokino explains that he and his teammates aren’t getting ahead of themselves anytime soon.

“We respect every single team and we get ready for the games game per game,” he said.

“We don’t think about what we did the week before and take the game as we supposed to.

“We don’t have that feeling like ‘we’re doing so well, we are the best’ or whatever. No!

“We get the pressure real high every single training session and we try to do our best every single game.”

Although Croydon drew 1-1 all against Modbury, a team that the Blue Eagles defeated 6-0, Boyokino is still very much wary of the reigning champions.

“Even if people are saying that the draw against Modbury, which is a team that we won (against) 6-0, they think that Croydon maybe aren’t as strong as we are, but not true,” he said.

“Croydon is a really good team,” he continues, “I think this game will be one of the best games around, so far.

“Regardless of the last result, Croydon are one of the best teams in the league and they proved last year that they were the best.

“And maybe, good teams like these, they want to do better and that’s a really good opportunity for them to play us, straight after a bad result against a team they should’ve won.”

However, Croydon didn’t win against last week’s bottom side, which left a bitter taste in the mouths of a lot Croydon players, including Luke Klimek.

“Obviously, we were pretty disappointed with the result, but we were a bit disappointed about the way we played as well.”

He doesn’t think that he and his teammates underestimated Modbury, but in fact believes that the Jets stepped up their game.

“I don’t think we underestimated them, it was just more so that Modbury played pretty, well, very well and we didn’t play to our normal standard as well,” Klimek said.

In regards to the Blue Eagles, who already have scored 14 goals in the first three matches of season, Klimek expects no major changes ahead of the clash on Saturday night.

“We obviously make a few slight changes to every team (we play), but we’ll be mainly focusing on ourselves and raising our standards from last week,” he said.

But Klimek is still very much expecting a tough encounter against the current league leaders.

“We expect a very good team and they are obviously playing very well; top of the table,” he said.

“So, we’re expecting a great contest and it should be a good game.”

Article by Christopher Munker