Adelaide United’s Stefan Mauk is looking forward to another chance at proving his old employees Melbourne City wrong this Friday night.
The 20-year-old will face-off against the team he was playing for just six-months ago in the A-League semi-finals and is able to see the surrealism in the situation.
“I guess leading into the season my goal was to play as many games for Melbourne City as possible,” said Mauk.
“Things change very quickly in football, so I’m very happy to be here at Adelaide United. I made the decision to move over and it’s worked out very good for myself personally.
“Since I’ve come here I think we’ve lost one game only…we deservedly are in this position, we’re the minor premiers and now we have a massive game on Friday.”
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This will be the third time that Mauk has lined up in red against his former teammates and while Adelaide came out 2-0 winners in their encounter on the final round of the regular season, a halftime brawl sparked between the midfielder and Harry Novillo seemed to reveal some leftover bad blood.
“I’ve had a few discussions about what happened with a couple of the players I’m still friends with,” he said.
“I guess the emotions sometimes boil over, friendships get put to the side and your just worrying about winning.
“This is even a bigger game, there is bound to be a few fights and stuff like that on the field.
“Specifically they’re not going to go out there and target me though, I wouldn’t think so.”
Expecting a close match, Mauk is confident that the added rest and confidence from winning the Premiers’ Plate will be enough of an advantage for Adelaide.
“We’ve been fortunate to have the extra week off…everybody is ready to fight and we’ll do whatever it takes to win.”
The Reds host Melbourne City in the first semi-final at Coopers’ Stadium on Friday night.
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