Airton Andrioli has enjoyed a perfect start to life as Adelaide United head coach, watching his new charges earn an impressive 2-1 win over Sydney FC at Coopers Stadium.
Former Reds youth team coach Andrioli, who's taken over from Carl Veart following his departure at the end of last season, said that winning first up was a crucial step in his maiden journey in the top job.
After a dominant first half, former captain Ryan Kitto broke the deadlock on 55 minutes, heading in a corner from returning skipper Craig Goodwin before Ethan Alagich doubled the lead 10 minutes later.
Joe Lolley ensured a frantic finish with an injury-time goal for Sydney but the Reds held on for a well-deserved victory.
"Look, it helps. Winning football matches gives you confidence. You've been working on many things in pre-season, in training, but to be able to execute it in a match is really when you start believing you can do those things," said Andrioli.
"I believe in playing football the way we did tonight and then obviously the result helps us with that.
"We celebrate tonight, we're happy, it's important to start the right way like we did tonight but it's about the next game, the next action, how we show up for the next training session on Monday and then changing the focus to 'can we do it again next time'."
Andrioli was full of praise for his players, who gained the ascendancy early on and could have had a couple before halftime, if not for impressive saves from visiting goalkeeper Harrison Devenish-Meares.
"I was happy with the football we played, the connections, the principles, the things that we do at training, you see that coming to fruition in the match," Andrioli said.
"Players were executing that, having the belief to do that. It's a positive, but I think we can improve on that as well.
"And don't forget, we played against a very good opposition tonight. They are really well coached, some very good players and they didn't make things easy for us."
Sydney coach Ufuk Talay drew plenty of positives from the match despite the loss, in particular some impressive glimpses from new signings Piero Quispe and Victor Campuzano.
"They've played two 45 minutes together," he said. "We tried to keep them on the park as long as we can to continue to build that cohesion, and also to build their fitness.
"Victor is going to be an exciting player, as well as Piero. Joe (Lolley) has been very influential in this competition for a long time now.
"We've got some energy on the left side with Al Hassan (Toure) and also Abel (Walatee) to make a difference."
