City Head Coach John van’t Schip says Adelaide will need to be wary of his side after Sunday’s impressive win over the in-form side of the competition.
Melbourne City were convincing in their 2-0 win over Perth Glory in Elimination Final 2 and the Dutchman believes his side’s attacking intent in both defence and attack is what pushed them into Friday’s Semi Final.
“Coming into the finals we lost the last two games of the season. We had a bit of a hit the last two weeks but looking at this evening, the boys really bounced back and showed that they really wanted it this evening,” van’t Schip said.
“We were aggressive, we were on our front foot pressing them and I think it was a deserved win for us.
“I think we clearly were the team that wanted to play. I think coming up 1-0 at that moment, it was a deserved lead. Of course it’s always important if you make the first goal going into half time so the players did an excellent job today.
“They were aggressive, carrying out the gameplan in a perfect way and tried to play positive every time.
“We know Perth is a quality team, they have the best part of the second half of the season with the results they had so we knew we had to bring a lot and the boys did that.”
City will have to do it the hardest of the teams left in the Hyundai A-League Finals Series with a five day turnaround but van’t Schip believes his side will be unfazed by the situation, saying Sunday’s win was just as important as a week off.
“It’s going to be a big finals game and we’ve shown it already two times (in Adelaide) this year that we know how to beat them,” he said.
“They’re playing at home so I think for us it’s important that we won this game. We have to make sure we are ready to go on Friday to go 90 minutes or even longer.
“This is a finals game, they’ve played against us a week ago so it’s going to be tight. We know they have quality players as we do, they have a good passing, attacking team so we just have to make sure we are prepared and do our bit as well.
“We’ve shown we can do that and make a great game and play for everything to get into the Grand Final. It’s Adelaide that has to stop us and that’s the way you have to approach it.”
City take on Adelaide this Friday night at Coopers Stadium, kick-off 7.45pm (AEST). See the match on Fox Sports 505 or delayed on SBS2.
