Adelaide United’s coach Gertjan Verbeek suggested the Reds should give more South Aussies a chance over foreigners
Adelaide United coach Gertjan Verbeek said he’d prefer to blood young South Australians over less than satisfactory imports in the future.
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Adelaide United coach Gertjan Verbeek says blooding young South Australians is his ideal long term solution to thriving frugally rather than wasting money on visa players that aren’t premium quality.
Adelaide has four of its five visa signings off contract in May – Mirko Boland, 32, Kristian Opseth, 30, Michael Jakobsen, 34, and Yongbin Chen, 20, who is yet to make his A-League debut.
Michael Maria’s deal concludes at the same time as Verbeek’s contract is up in May 2021.
“I think the club has to find their own identity,’’ Verbeek said.
“I don’t think this club will be a buying club.
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“If you don’t want to spend a lot of money for foreign players you don’t get the best ones.
“So you have to ask yourself; do you need five visa players?
“They are a lot of good Australian players, for instance (Stefan) Mauk why was he playing for Brisbane (before Adelaide re-signed him).
“So I think you have more of a known identity when you have players coming from South Australia, from Adelaide.
“You see how it works with Toure, first Al Hassan and now Mohamed, the people like that.
“From your own youth (team) to the first squad.
“So when you get a foreign player he has to be really good.
“If you look at Mirko he’s a good player but also he has been a lot of time injured under Marco (Kurz) the former trainer (coach) and also this year he has a lot of problems.”
Verbeek’s side will face the most high profile visa player currently in the A-League at Hindmarsh Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The Dutchman says Western United’s Italian star Alessandro Diamanti is a great player but the Reds can take the gloss off his creative game by making him run more than he wants to.
Diamanti, 36, scored and was subbed off in the 86th minute of the Reds beating Western 4-3 at Footscray’s Whitten Oval on Australia Day.
Verbeek was more concerned about giving Western too much space – citing the glaring gaps between the Reds attack and defence – rather than Diamanti’s individual brilliance.
“I don’t care about names of the opponent and of course they have some good players, Diamanti is one of them,” Verbeek said.
“In the game (against Western in January) in the last 20 minutes he was tired, he’s an older player, so he ran a lot, they are very dynamic but they also have to do some defensive work.
“We have scored 33 goals, we are in the top four (for goals) but also we have 34 goals against us, that’s second last.
“Strikers don’t like to defend and it’s always about the way you play are we capable to have the ball a lot and they have to run after the ball, that’s not what Diamanti likes.
“He wants to rest and if you don’t give him that rest he will go to the sides (bench), the trainer (coach) will get him out (substitute him).”
Lachlan Brook, 18, returns from Australian under 20 international duty and Mauk (quadricep), Ryan Strain (hamstring) and Ben Halloran (hamstring) have all been added to the Reds squad.