Socceroo legend Josip Skoko has praised the efforts of Melbourne Heart FC’s support staff in preparing the side for its extended three-game stint on the road.
Socceroo legend Josip Skoko has praised the efforts of Melbourne Heart FC-s support staff in preparing the side for its extended three-game stint on the road.
With Heart set to face the North Queensland Fury in Townsville tonight for the chance to leap to fifth on the table, Skoko said the team has coped well with its recent schedule, despite travelling to Port Macquarie, Perth and Townsville in a nine-day period.
“It hasn-t been too bad. It has been very hectic and there are a lot of kms between ourselves and this place (Townsville), I think its full credit to the Club and the way we-ve been organised,” he said.
“Port Macquarie was a last minute thing and the way that they-ve handled it has been really good. The boys got on with it and we got a couple of results, and hopefully we-ve got another one coming.”
Having spent his senior career largely in Europe, Skoko has rarely faced the amount of travel encountered so far with Heart this season.
But Skoko said he isn-t completely foreign to the perils of travel, revealing he faced a number of lengthy road trips while plying his trade in Croatia.
“We did some pretty tough trips even in Croatia with the bus. You might not be flying, but we did trips where you had to fly probably 500kms then bus 500kms, and it-s taken even longer than it did to travel to Perth,” he said.
“We had some tough trips over there which took it out of you. I remember one time we played a game, we travelled up on plane and bus, and we had a bad result and the president just said ‘off you go, all the way back by bus.-
“It was around midnight then so we got back at around 7 in the morning. Safe to say we won the next one!”
