Adriano Pellegrino is humbled to have his name alongside the likes of Perth Glory greats Bobby Despotovski and Scott Miller as a winner of the club’s Most Glorious Player award.
Adriano Pellegrino is humbled to have his name alongside the likes of Perth Glory greats Bobby Despotovski and Scott Miller as a winner of the club-s Most Glorious Player award.
The 24 year old enjoyed a wonderful first season for Perth and his achievements have spurred him on to emulate the feats of those club-s legends by bringing Championship success to the Glory.
“I’m just very honoured to be on this trophy,” said Pellegrino.
“So many of the boys that have put their mark on the trophy have gone on to be legends of not only of Perth Glory but the game.
“I just want to consistently reach the highest level I can. I have really enjoyed my time with Perth so far and look forward to many more years and success with them.”
Plucked from the South Australian State League, Pellegrino let his feet do the talking and rose to the challenge of performing consistently at the Hyundai A-League level. He quickly established himself as a Glory regular and his efforts were rewarded with a two year contract extension mid-season. The MGP honours simply confirming his status as a genuine star of the competition.
“I wanted to show supporters that I gave my all this year and I hope they know that I want to be around at the Glory for a long time.
“My aim was to come to the Glory and do well and I was very thankful to be given a chance by Mitch.
“Now I’m going to try and set myself as a benchmark and be a core member of this team for a long while to come.”
Pellegrino dominated the voting, particularly during a mid-season surge, and finished nine votes ahead of second placed Jamie Harnwell. Far from resting on his laurels, the tough midfielder has set his sights on taking his game to another level with the single focus of helping Perth into the finals in season 2009/10.
“We showed this year through our efforts in the second half of the season that we can get the results we want and nearly scraped into the finals despite a dismal start to the year,” Pellegrino said.
“The boys showed plenty of character to come back and I think if we have a good start to next season it-ll set us up well. Mitch (Coach Dave Mitchell) has a core bunch of boys already here, which he didn’t have when he first came into the job, I think we-re definitely going to make the finals.
“Without a doubt next year we-re not thinking anything else except finals. We have to be there, we have to be there,” he said.
