Photo: Graeme Furlong
Galaxy United coach Vincenzo Ierardo says that he’s immensely proud of his side, despite a 2-1 extra time defeat by Calder United in the NPLW Grand Final.
Ierardo was extremely humble in defeat, congratulating Calder first and foremost, whilst also praising his team and their boisterous fans.
“I’m truly proud of them, and the supporters, everyone that gave it their all today,” Ierardo said.
“Congratulations to Calder, they deserved it. They were the top team all year, so well done to them.”
In a game of momentum switches, the Galaxy coach stated that he was proud of his side’s performance, which saw them craft a number of quality openings throughout the 120 minutes.
“[Calder] didn’t really have too many opportunities but obviously once they got their first goal their heads were a little bit up and ours were a little bit down, which was a shame.
“But the girls still fought on and almost could’ve pinched it back there at the end. Still [I’m] proud of the effort of everyone.”
Despite going all the way through to penalties against Alamein FC last week, Galaxy came home the stronger of the two sides in extra-time, which came as no surprise to Ierardo, who praised his team’s conditioning.
“We’ve finished off every single game a lot better than most teams, so we knew that was going to be the case.”
His side could have had a penalty late in the second half, when what appeared to be a foul in the box was awarded as only a free kick by the match officials.
The official word is that the free-kick and yellow card was issued for the initial contact outside of the box rather than the blatant impact from inside the area, but Ierardo says he couldn’t comment from his position.
“I just screamed out to some of my players to just check with the linesman, because I knew the ref gave it as a free kick, but I’m 70-80 meters away so nah I can’t really comment on it.”
With the game being such a tight contest, Ierardo did admit that on another day, the result may have differed.
“We did outplay them in stages of the game, and I definitely thought especially at the start of the second half we had two very good opportunities to give us a further advantage in the game,” he conceded.
“Unfortunately it didn’t happen that way.”
Despite the result, Ierardo says that the season, on the whole can be regarded as a success for the Galaxy.
“Coming from fourth place, to finishing in the top two is fantastic, because a lot of people did write us off.
“I’m immensely proud.”
As for the future, Ierardo says he is hopeful that he will remain at the club, despite his upcoming Melbourne Victory commitments.
“I’ll take the next week, week and a half off….then obviously sit down with the club again and map out what we’re going do going forward.”