On Sunday afternoon Sydney FC will take on the Central Coast in round two of the Hyundai A-League’s Pre-Season Cup, and while the debut of a former Socceroo will see much of the attention focused on the Mariners, John Kosmina is more concerned with his own camp.
On Sunday afternoon Sydney FC will take on the Central Coast in round two of the Hyundai A-League-s Pre-Season Cup, and while the debut of a former Socceroo will see much of the attention focused on the Mariners, John Kosmina is more concerned with his own camp.
Last Saturday his side scored a scrappy 2-1 win over the Queensland Roar in the opening round of the Cup, and with the start of the season-proper only weeks away, the Sydney coach is looking for a much improved performance from his players.
“We were fairly un-cohesive against Queensland, for reasons I-m not sure, because we-d done alright in the trial games we-d had previously and we-d actually trained really well that week,” said Kosmina. “Maybe it was first game nerves, I don-t know, but we-ve had a good talk about how we went about things and what we need to do to change.”
Sydney has a good record against the Mariners, having won seven of the thirteen clashes between the teams, compared to the Central Coast-s four.
Kosmina isn-t reading anything into that however, and knows his side will have to be on its game.
“ They play a high tempo, high intensity game and they-re going to work hard, it-s one of their trademarks and we need to be able to match that otherwise we won-t be coming out with the result we want.”
Overshadowing the game itself is the return of former Socceroo goal-keeper, Mark Bosnich, who-ll stand between the Central Coast sticks after five years in the football wilderness.
“Oh look, I hope it has an impact on the crowd if nothing else,” said Kosmina. “Bozza-s got a presence in a goal mouth so it-ll be interesting to see how out blokes react to that.”
And the Sydney mentor is hoping his players will react positively, looking to put plenty past the Coast custodian.
“We-re in a position where we want to get a result, we want to be successful, every trophy counts.”
Sunday-s Pre-Season Cup clash between Sydney FC and the Central Coast will kick off at Gosford-s Bluetongue Stadium at 3:00pm.
