Avondale tweaks gameplan to ensure no repeat of last season’s fadeout
Avondale were the dominant team of NPL 2019 but came away with nothing to show for it, this season coach Zoran Markovski is confident small changes will ensure there’s no repeat.
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Avondale coach Zoran Markovski believes his team is better for last season’s painful end.
The Avengers were the dominant team for much of the 2019 NPL season before a late fadeout saw it concede the championship to Heidelberg United and lose the grand final to Bentleigh Greens on penalties.
Markovski said plenty of lessons were learnt as a result of last season’s near misses.
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“We’ve got to learn from last year and we’ll work on mental strength this season,” he said.
“It’s good to talk about 2019, it was a special season, I think we were the best team in Victoria. Some of the football we played was outstanding.
“There were some big moments and we couldn’t take them. It will make us stronger going forward.
“We think we can really kick on from what happened last year.”
Avondale has retained the bulk of last year’s squad and added former Adelaide A-League youth captain Blake Carpenter from Dandenong Thunder.
Carpenter played 27 games for the Thunder last season scoring six goals, including two against his new teammates.
The 20-year-old winger will add depth to an Avondale squad that was tested at times last season.
Markovski said the Avengers had spent the pre-season working on improving their fitness as well as strategies to combat teams that park the bus.
“The boys are in a good space. We’re fitter than we were this time last season,” he said.
“We’ll stick to the same gameplan but this time we’ve got plan b and plan c, which we’ve been working on in pre-season.
“I think last year we got caught in the second half of the season when teams were fighting for relegation, trying to get us in transition and get a point out of us.
“What we’ve learned from that is we’ve got to be patient with the ball and open teams up with our mobility. We don’t have to win the game in the first 10 or 15 minutes.”
Avondale will kick off the new NPL season away to Oakleigh Cannons on Thursday night, the first in four straight road games, before a home debut against Melbourne Knights on March 14.