will host Saturday\u2019s clash with Sydney FC<\/a> \u2014 the first A-League decider on New Zealand soil, with Auckland FC vying to become the country\u2019s first title winners.<\/p>\nDespite the growing hype, head coach Steve Corica is maintaining a siege mentality ahead of the biggest game of Auckland FC’s fledgling existence.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Breakfast, Corica said the team had drawn motivation from being underestimated throughout the season.<\/p>\n
“I definitely brought that up to the players against Adelaide.<\/p>\n
“Everyone wrote us off. We know ourselves we can go and win this, we want to be the first team in New Zealand to win a grand final in football.”<\/p>\n
Extra tickets to the weekend’s A-League grand final have sold out in minutes. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n
The former Sydney FC coach would bring significant experience into the match, having been involved in five A-League title deciders as both a player and a coach.<\/p>\n
While his time in Sydney provided some “added pressure,” he said the experience had taught him the importance of not getting carried away by the hype.<\/p>\n
“We’ve tried to keep the week as normal as possible, you don’t want to get too carried away too early in the week,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’re trying to make history.”<\/p>\n
Auckland FC chief executive Nick Becker said the scale of interest showed how significant the occasion was for both the club and the wider football community.<\/p>\n
“We’ve still go so much to do, so much growth ahead of us,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s great not only for the club, but I think it’s a massive moment for Auckland as a city and New Zealand football as well.”<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including more warnings about corrections corruption, a shocking death on a New York street, and Italy\u2019s surprise scandal. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took just four minutes for an extra 2000 A-League grand final tickets to sell out last night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73757,111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-438990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-auckland-fc","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}