‘Arrogant’ Al Hilal won’t intimidate Wanderers — Covic

SYDNEY — Western Sydney Wanderers goalkeeper Ante Covic thinks Al Hilal had been “arrogant” ahead of last weekend’s Asian Champions League final first leg and had underestimated the A-League side.

Covic was one of the Wanderers’ heroes on Saturday at Parramatta Stadium as the Australian club, playing in their maiden campaign, secured a 1-0 lead to take to Saudi Arabia for next weekend’s second leg.

While twice-Asian champions Al Hilal completely dominated all but 15 minutes of the match, they were unable to breach the home defence and paid the price when substitute striker Tomi Juric slotted home the winner after 64 minutes.

“Everyone’s slowly finding out that we’re no mugs out there on the field and we’re a team that’s got to be respected,” Covic told reporters in Blacktown on Monday.

“It’s a little bit of arrogance on their behalf coming into a game and thinking they deserve something without having to put in the effort.”

Al Hilal’s Romanian coach Laurentiu Reghecampf appeared not to have learned the lesson of Saturday’s reverse, afterwards confidently predicting a second-leg victory for the well-funded club at their King Fahd Stadium.

Reghecampf expected Al Hilal’s passionate following — more than 65,000 fans are expected to pack the stadium on Saturday night — would play their part in overcoming the Australians.

Covic said, however, that the tournament’s new boys had learned plenty about playing the region’s powerhouses away from home during their quarter-final, second leg against reigning champions Guangzhou Evergrande in August.

Wanderers players were awoken by telephone calls in their hotel rooms the night before the game, were involved in a coach crash on the way to the match and pelted with water bottles at the stadium.

They lost 2-1 on the night but went through on away goals and Covic warned Al Hilal fans that the incidents had only served to harden their resolve.

“We’re not going to be intimidated,” Covic added.

“We’re not going to care what they’re going to throw at us. We were in China with 50,000-odd people throwing bottles and yelling at us. We couldn’t even walk off the field without security coming to get us, so that’s not going to faze us.

“We’re going out there with the mindset that something will happen.

“We saw that in China and it was kind of annoying when it happened but I remember when the bus crash happened, it was a very, very [suspicious] bus crash.

“But I remember the boys going ‘oh yeah, this is what you’ve got for us’ but it really fired us up.”