Melbourne Heart FC Captain Simon Colosimo has declared his side is determined to secure victory against Sydney FC on Saturday night to honour the careers of Socceroo legends Josip Skoko and John Aloisi.
Melbourne Heart FC Captain Simon Colosimo has declared his side is determined to secure victory against Sydney FC on Saturday night to honour the careers of Socceroo legends Josip Skoko and John Aloisi.
Skoko and Aloisi will hang up the boots after this weekend-s match, bringing an end to the careers of two members of Australian football-s Golden Generation.
Despite missing out on a berth in the Hyundai A-League Finals Series, Colosimo said the side remains motivated to claim all three points to send the duo off in style, in addition to thanking the Club-s fans for the amazing support it has received during its debut season.
“It’s really a thank you to the supporters and a thank you to Johnny and Josip especially. It’s not only (what they have achieved) on the field, we’re talking about guys, who’ve got a wealth of experience and it’s great what they’ve done for the club,” he said.
“We want to get a win, we want to serve Johnny a couple and hopefully Josip is serving them in.”
Having scored seven goals to be the Club-s equal-leading scorer this season, Aloisi has been a phenomenal performer during his final campaign as a professional, scoring three times in Derby match-ups against Victory to ensure he has cemented his legacy at Heart.
“We’re talking about goals against Victory, a brace away from home when we’re two-nil down, all the big goals,” he said.
“He’s a player who’s been written off more times than he’s been praised, he’s someone who’s a massive, massive-game player. People look at the (World Cup qualifying) penalty (against Uruguay) and say,’ that’s what Johnny’s known for’.”
“But, no, it’s not only the nerves to stick it in the back of the net that night, it’s the big games that he seems to thrive on.”
Colosimo meanwhile praised Skoko-s contribution to Heart-s inaugural season, saying the midfielder still manages to dazzle his teammates at training on a regular basis.
“You sit there and you forget what you’re doing because of watching what he does, how much time he seems to have on the ball,” he said.
“Josip and (Wayne) Srhoj were our two most influential players all season.”
“Every time that we played with them together we seemed to really grab a hold of the game and him, along with Johnny, when he had his little patch of injury, that really hurt.”
Skoko-s importance to the Heart line-up is confirmed by the Club-s form during his periods of absence this season, with Heart only winning once during the eight matches he missed through injury.
