There is less than a month before Perth Glory kick-off their Isuzu UTE A-League 2025-26 season and head coach David Zdrilic is pleased with what we saw from his team in a new structure against Melbourne Victory.
Glory and Victory went head-to-head in a pre-season fixture in Mandurah on Sunday, with the latter emerging 1-0 winners in Western Australia.
Perth succumbed to a stunning Jordi Valadon goal in front of more than 2,000 fans at Peelwood Reserve in the opening game of Glory’s Regional South West Tour.
Zdrilic used a 3-5-2 formation against Arthur Diles’ Victory, with new signings Mark Birighitti, Sam Sutton, Scott Wootton, Callum Timmins, Jaiden Kucharski and Brian Kaltak in the XI alongside Brandon O’Neill, Nathanael Blair, Josh Risdon, Will Freney and Kaelan Majekodunmi, while Sebastian Despotovski, Taras Gomulka, Gabriel Popovic, Arion Sulemani, Joel Anasmo, Nicholas Pennington and Trent Ostler came off the bench.
As Glory gear up for their October 18 opener at home to Wellington Phoenix, Zdrilic told club media of the new structure: “It was a bit of an unknown. I think we’ve done some good work in training and in-house games.
“We played a five in our game against Sterling, albeit a different structure in a 3-4-3 not a 3-5-2.
“But I thought they were very comfortable in the first half. In all levels of where we were, even when we were deeper, we then stepped out of it and pushed up the park. I was very happy with that.
“In the second half we made some changes, they scored early on. Then we made some more changes and changed the system again. We created a couple of chances.
“The next step for us is out of that dominance to create more opportunities and score more goals.”
Juan Mata was not involved for Victory following the former Manchester United, Chelsea and Spain star’s arrival last week.
But Victory still boasted new signings Denis Genreau, Matthew Grimaldi, Keegan Jelacic and Louis D’Arrigo in the starting XI for the first time, along with Valadon, Jack Duncan, Adama Traore, Lachlan Jackson, Nikos Vergos, captain Roderick Miranda and Joshua Rawlins.
Victory begin their campaign at home to reigning premiers Auckland FC on October 18.
“It was really interesting to see what level we’re at. I thought that first half we were very dominant, especially with the ball. We were very comfortable,” Zdrilic said of the contest.
“Pressing in a new structure I thought we caught them quite a few times early on. Just weren’t able to kill them off and get the finish we deserved.
“We had a good set-piece that we should’ve scored. The finish wasn’t there for the good play and dominance we had.
“The second half it was disappointing. They didn’t have too many chances but they’re clinical. They got that chance and took it. That was disappointing for us but for a hit-out, not knowing where we were going to be at, I was very pleased.”
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