Head Coach Richard Garcia believes that the Glory faithful will have a key role to play in Saturday’s eagerly-anticipated season-opener against Adelaide United at HBF Park (Kick-off at 7.05pm, tickets HERE).
View the full media conference HERE.
A bumper crowd is expected to be on hand at HBF Park to see a new-look home side take on the Reds in a fixture which has produced plenty of firework in recent years.
And Garcia is adamant that those supporters can give his charges a significant boost in their bid to repeat their victory over the same opponents in the corresponding first-up fixture last season.
“They [the supporters] have a massive, massive role to play,” he said.
“Having not had a lot of match practice, it’s something like the crowd that actually takes you over the line and gets you that extra bit of energy that you need to push through.”
Not that Garcia is expecting his squad to be lacking in fitness following a very lengthy pre-season.
“We’re confident that we’ve prepared in the best way possible, but you can’t prepare for something that you haven’t done.
“I feel that once we get out there, the adrenalin will take over and the boys will be pumped for it.
“They’ve been hungry for this for the last 16 weeks; it’s been a long pre-season, so for us to have a competitive game and especially in front our home crowd, is going to be fantastic.
“I feel like we’ve done everything possible to get that to that point [full fitness].
“Of course it’s the first game for them and that’s always going to be difficult, but we have a good enough bench for players to come on and make an impact.”
Adelaide United will head west looking to end a winless run at HBF Park which dates back to the 2017/18 season and Glory’s Head Coach is expecting the South Australians to ask plenty of questions.
“In all their competitive games that they’ve had, they’ve looked pretty strong, especially going forward,” he said.
“They’ve got some good attacking threats and we’ve got to be mindful of that, but at the same time we’ve got to focus on us and us being at home and playing in front of our home supporters in the big crowd that we’re going to have there [at HBF Park] on the weekend.”
#OneGlory
