THE soccer season is upon us with the opening round of the Limestone Coast Football Association pre-season cup held this Sunday.
All games will be played away from the Blue Lake City, as Apollo travels to Millicent, International makes the trip to Naracoorte and Gambier Centrals journeys to Portland, while Blue Lake has the bye for round one.
LCFA CEO Eric Nieto looks forward to the season ahead and expects another successful competition.
“Everything ran pretty smoothly last year and I think this year will be the same,” he said.
“This year there seems to be a bit of a struggle for some of the junior grades.
“I think Under 17’s are a bit lean at some of the clubs.
“But things do change very quickly within a couple of weeks, with kids deciding to play again last minute
“Hopefully that will happen and we can have a full contingency again.”
The pre-season cup – dubbed the Limestone Coast Cup for 2019 – will see a change up to the semi-final draw this year.
Both the Under 17 and senior semi-finals will be played midweek on Thursday April 25, to see them fall on Anzac Day.
“We are playing the Under 17’s first, followed up by the two senior games, which will finish under lights at Casadio Park,” Nieto said.
That will be followed by the remaining grades contested on the Sunday as per usual.
The cup is the perfect chance for teams to test new players or tactics before the main season begins, but that does not take away from the competitiveness.
“Everybody wants to win the pre-season cup,” Nieto said.
“It is a nice trophy and it is a prestigious thing to win.
“It is also a good way to start looking at the opposition.”
When asked for any A Grade pre-season predictions, Nieto said he expects Inter and Centrals to remain at the front of the pack, but the improvement from several clubs can not be ruled out to throw a spanner in the works.
Inter will enter the cup as reigning champion and will chase its fifth consecutive trophy, after claiming both the pre-season and premiership cups the past two years.
However, 2018 cup runner-up Apollo will be hungrier than ever for victory after it took two segments of overtime to determine last year’s result.
Centrals can also be expected to make an impact and will also be among the front-runners.
Looking forward to the season ahead, Nieto said there is not much planned by the association outside of the normal competition at this stage.
However, he hopes to send a senior LCFA representative team to play at Adelaide’s iconic Hindmarsh
Stadium at some point in the year.
“We will try and get some kind of match played at Hindmarsh, that is my aim this year,” Nieto said.
“I want our seniors to play under lights at Hindmarsh as a curtain raiser to a major game or something like that.”
The cup grand finals are scheduled for May 5, with the Premiership Cup to kick off the following week on Sunday, May 12.
