Fatima Halloum
Werribee City will push to win the last two games of the season or risk facing relegation from the National Premier League 2 competition.
The team had the bye on weekend due to the catch up round, having lost their last match on July 30 to Moreland City, 3-0.
Coach Giuseppe Santalucia said it had been a tough year for the team, and there were many games that should have been won, but weren’t.
He said the match against Moreland they dropped their heads after conceding an early goal.
Sitting 11th, Werribee City will need to fight to keep their place in the NPL2.
“We’ve got two games to go, we’ll see if we can win the next two games which will be tough competitors,” Santalucia said.
“We’ve got Northcote, which they sit in the middle of the table, and then we’ve got Moreland Zebras.
“If we win the next two games there’s a good chance we’ll stay in the NPL2.”
If the Bees are unsuccessful in the next two games, they may need to compete in a play off game against an NPL3 team.
The bottom side will face the third ranked team in the NPL3 competition and the second bottom team will face the fourth team from NPL3, with the winners likely to be in NPL2 next season.
“We’ll try, we feel confident, we’ll still try to get those points over the line and make the club proud if we can,” Santalucia said.
The Bees have won six of the 20 games played this season and Santalucia acknowledges his appointment as coach mid-season “might have something to do with” the team’s “tough” season.
“It’s always better when you’ve got the team from the start…but I’ve been around as an assistant coach,” he said.
“Especially in the last six weeks, we had new players coming in, and we had a lot of injuries, some of our attacking players have been injured.”
However, Santalucia says there’s “no excuse towards the results.”
“We have at our best, if we can bring that on, I think we will give the other two teams that we are playing a tough time,” he said.
Werribee City will play Northcote City this Saturday at Galvin Park Reserve.
