Adelaide United coach Carl Veart praised the fighting spirit in his side as they held Melbourne City to a 0-0 draw in the first leg of their A-League semi-final clash.
The Reds are priced at 8/1 to win the 2022 grand final and are still in with a chance with the tie on a knife edge heading into the second leg at AAMI Park.
United started the game brightly but it was City who had the better of the chances with Reds goalkeeper Joe Gauci pulling off some fine saves to keep his side in the tie.
Even so Veart had plenty of praise for his side who continue to punch above their weight.
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"We're one of the smaller clubs, there's a few of us around the league that have a very different budget to a lot of the big teams," Veart said. "But on our day, we'll fight and I think you saw that tonight and all season - we fight and we don't give up.
"We try to play an attractive brand of football and if we manage to get the result on Sunday, that would be great. The boys should be proud of what we've done this season but we still believe we've got a lot more to do."
Adelaide still have it all to do in the second leg at Melbourne’s AAMI Park but they have won there 2-1 already this season and can take plenty of heart from that result.
"It's finals football, there's pressure on both sides," Veart added. "We know we won there earlier in the season so we've got good belief in what we're doing."
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