{"id":11173,"date":"2026-05-14T07:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/11173\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T07:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:52:12","slug":"a-league-craig-goodwin-ready-to-take-adelaide-to-grand-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/11173\/","title":{"rendered":"A-League: Craig Goodwin ready to take Adelaide to grand final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adelaide United skipper Craig Goodwin knows his FIFA World Cup dreams could hinge on whether he can lead the Reds to A-League glory.<\/p>\n

The veteran winger\u2019s hopes of being selected in Australia\u2019s squad for the World Cup \u2013 which starts next month \u2013 seemed shot when he suffered a serious groin injury in February.<\/p>\n

However, having made a quicker-than-expected recovery, Goodwin returned to action last month and has appeared off the bench in Adelaide\u2019s past two games, including last Saturday\u2019s 1-1 semi-final first-leg draw against Auckland FC at Go Media Stadium.<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old attacking weapon said he was ready to play from the opening whistle, if required, in Friday night\u2019s second-leg at Coopers Stadium, where a grand-final berth will be up for grabs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m ready to play whatever role is called upon me,\u201d Goodwin said on Thursday,<\/p>\n

\u201cI am fit enough and comfortable enough to play 90 minutes at this stage, but also I know that if my role is coming off the bench, I have a part to play, and can have a big impact in this next match.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to out any extra pressure on myself or do anything different. However many minutes I get, whether it\u2019s from the start, whether it\u2019s off the bench, I have my part to play, and my job is to win this game for Adelaide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guiding the Reds to the grand final would also aid Goodwin\u2019s of representing Australia at a second World Cup, having first done so four years ago in Qatar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know if I\u2019m going to have any chance of making the World Cup, then the next two games for me have to be unbelievable,\u201d he said in the confidence that Adelaide would reach next weekend\u2019s decider.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a particular attitude in this group that perhaps hasn\u2019t been there in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey (Auckland) will fancy themselves as do we … (but) we haven\u2019t won anything yet. We\u2019re not getting ahead of ourselves We\u2019re fully focused on the job at hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reds coach Airton Andrioli was yet to decide whether to start Goodwin on Friday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a few plans, we have a few scenarios for different players,\u201d Andrioli said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the players understand what\u2019s in front of us and are ready to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know the opportunity we have, and now we have to execute that on the football pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrioli must also decide whether to again start veteran Brazilian Anselmo de Moraes at centre-forward, or bring in-form striker Luka Jovanovic into the starting team on his return from a one-game suspension.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a good headache at the moment,\u201d the Brazilian mentor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s available. We\u2019re in a strong position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read related topics:Adelaide<\/a>FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023<\/a>\"Marco<\/a>Marco Monteverde<\/a>Sports reporter<\/p>\n

Marco Monteverde is a Brisbane-based sports reporter for NCA Newswire. He worked in a similar role for The Courier-Mail from 2007 to 2020. During a journalism career of more than 25 years, he has also worked for The Queensland Times, The Sunshine Coast Daily, The Fraser Coast Chronicle and The North West Star. He has covered three FIFA World Cups and the 2000 Sydney Olympics, as well as a host of other major sporting events in Australia and around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adelaide United skipper Craig Goodwin knows his FIFA World Cup dreams could hinge on whether he can lead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[395,957,7576,2208,12125,9951,12130,12129,368,1280,10853,5368,12126,6523,9335,1080,9379,11504,12127,12128,12124],"class_list":{"0":"post-11173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-adelaide","8":"tag-adelaide","9":"tag-adelaide-united","10":"tag-airton-andrioli","11":"tag-auckland-fc","12":"tag-brazilian-mentor","13":"tag-craig-goodwin","14":"tag-finals-camgain","15":"tag-football-pitch","16":"tag-getty-images-inc","17":"tag-grand-final","18":"tag-grand-final-berth","19":"tag-groin-injury","20":"tag-in-form-stiker","21":"tag-jason-mccawley","22":"tag-luka-jovanovic","23":"tag-newswire-sport","24":"tag-reds-coach","25":"tag-reds-skipper","26":"tag-selection-hopes","27":"tag-veteran-brazilian","28":"tag-veteran-winger"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}