On Wednesday evening Darwin Olympic, a side made up of non-professionals, will take on FFA Cup holders Adelaide United – a team that may as well be from another world, a world where players are paid to train and play the game full-time.
But, as Darwin coach Steve Lolias has told his squad, the A-League players have “two arms and two legs, that’s what we’ve got too”.
Football Federation Australia announced last year the Northern Territory would have a slot in the 2015 round of 32, making the cup a “truly national competition”.
Olympic won their four qualifiers with ease, racking up 29 goals over the course of rounds four to seven, but it wasn’t without controversy as confusion over how many subs were allowed (the NT comp says five but FFA only allows three; Lolias made four) saw a victory scratched from the record and a replay ordered.
“The hardest part of our journey leading up to this was our first game,” said Lolias. “We ended up having to replay the game and won that again. And from then on the boys never looked back. But the week before the replay… there was talk about how we were going to lose the game and the boys were devastated. We’d done an eight-week pre-season training session and the boys had worked hard. But after that the boys travelled along well and started to become a unit.”
The team and coaching staff gathered at a local Darwin pub last month to watch the draw for the round of 32. They were enjoying some food and drinks when the numbers came out and revealed they – the new entrants to this top level cup competition, in its second year of existence – would be playing the team which last year took home the inaugural trophy.
Despite the shock, Lolias was “quietly confident” about their chances but would not give anything away in the days leading up to the match.
“I’m a realist as well, I don’t think we’re going to do it easy,” he told Guardian Australia. “Anything can happen. It happened last year in the first year of the FFA Cup where the Western Sydney Wanderers were beaten 1-0. As I said to the boys – two arms and two legs, that’s what we’ve got too. We hold ourselves and play our best game and who knows what can happen.”
Wednesday’s tie will be the first time a Northern Territory team has played in the competition, and it will be played at the underdogs’ tropical home ground, although Adelaide are familiar with it.
Team captain Oldrich Dubsky said the team is well aware of their underdog status, but “anything can happen” in 90 minutes.
“We’re going to be humble,” Dubsky said. “We’ve got nothing to lose because they are a professional side and we do it as a hobby, but we also understand the great opportunity to put NT soccer on the football map of Australia. We’ll do our best to represent not just our club but all teams from the Northern Territory.”
Football may not be the sporting religion of the NT – Australian rules football firmly holds that title – but Lolias hopes this high profile match will give a boost to its popularity.
He said if the game goes well, and Olympic can hold their own, it can only help the push for a Territory entrant into the A-League competition.
“To me, we’re not just representing Darwin Olympic – which I’m very proud of representing as my dad was one of the founders of the club,” he said. “To me it’s important for Darwin Olympic but also so important for Territory football up here.”
Dubsky said the game will be a motivator for younger players in the Northern Territory. “Just to see these guys playing live will definitely give them a lot – a boost to work harder, and to know they can play against teams like this in Darwin and down south.”
