FORMER Socceroo John Markovski has taken the wheel at Altona Magic and claimed a victory in his first game in charge of the Football Federation Victoria men’s State League 1 club.
The Magic turned to the one-time Australian international when Zoran Trajcevski handed in his resignation last week following a winless start to the season, which saw the proud club sitting rock bottom after five games.
Markovski, 45, a champion striker in the old National Soccer League, steered the Magic to a hard-fought 2-1 win over Western Suburbs at the Paisley Park Soccer Complex on Saturday to lift them off the bottom of the table.
“It was a good win, I can’t complain,” he told the Weekly.
“They all fought it out.
“A win does wonders for confidence.”
Magic fans would have got that old ‘here we go again’ feeling when Western Suburbs got the go-ahead goal through Josip Loncaric at the half-hour mark.
But the game changed complexion in the 10 minutes before the half-time break, when Eddie Cetkin and Juso Julardzija took advantage of critical Suburbs errors to score goals.
Julardzija’s goal was a masterpiece.
The striker intercepted on the defensive side of the halfway line, carried the ball on a mazy run and finished with an exquisite curling shot into the corner.
With no further addition to the scoreboard, it would be a fitting winner.
“It was a great goal,” Markovski said.
Markovski had little time to program his new game plan into the minds of the Magic players.
So all he asked from his players at half-time was 100 per cent effort for the remaining 45minutes. He got that in “bits and pieces”, but it was enough to secure the three points.
One area in glaring need of rapid improvement is fitness, according to Markovski.
“They ran out of legs,” he said of his team.
“We’ve got to get a lot fitter. It’s not going to happen overnight, but we’ve got to keep working because we need improvement there.”
Markovski praised his defensive quartet of captain Sime Kovacevic, Neven Antic, Alex Koltovski and Eddie Cetkin.
Suburbs kept knocking on the door with wave after wave of attack in the second half, only to be repelled by the experienced back four.
The Magic have a golden opportunity to make it two in a row when they meet new cellar-dweller Springvale White Eagles on the road on Sunday.
