Bren O'Brien in Launceston
Brazilian Cristiano has marked his first serious hit-out for Adelaide with a brace including a last-minute winner as the Reds overcame Melbourne 2-1 in their Pre-Season Cup match at Launceston.
With temperatures at around six degrees when the game kicked off at 1pm, the two teams produced an entertaining display which would have provided some warmth to the crowd of around 4,720. Victory took the lead after just eight minutes through its own Brazilian Ney Fabiano, while Cristiano converted from close range to make it 1-1 on 33 minutes.
The game looked poised to peter out to a draw when Cristiano took a half chance in the 90th minute to seal the result. Adelaide now leads Group A on three points ahead of its trip to Cessnock to play Newcastle, while Melbourne travels to Perth next week in search of its first points.
The first goal originated from an eighth-minute error by Robert Cornthwaite, who gave the ball away to Danny Allsopp in a dangerous area. He found Nick Ward out on the right and a clever curling cross was well met by Ney Fabiano, whose header found the back of the net.
Adelaide did much of the attacking in the first half. Paul Agostino was well fed by Jonas Salley, but could only hit the side netting, while Diego had a shot blocked by Rody Vargas and an ambitious effort from Alemao went over.
But the Reds' reward came on 33 minutes. A Scott Jamieson corner fell to Agostino, who had his shot well-blocked by Michael Theoklitos. But the ball fell to Cristiano, who had no trouble scoring from close-range
An open first half yielded two more good chances with Eugene Galekovic snuffing out a dangerous cross from Evan Berger before Diego's long-range shot almost ducked in under Theoklitos' crossbar.
The Victory keeper departed at half-time, replaced by understudy Mitch Langerak, who was forced into an early parry from an awkward Adelaide cross.
The tempo dropped noticeably in the second 45 minutes, but Melbourne managed to craft two excellent chances on the counter-attack just after the hour, one to Ney Fabiano and one to Tom Pondeljak. Both were saved easily by Galekovic, who also did well to knock away Allsopp's fierce shot on 73 minutes.
Melbourne continued to create the better chances, with Allsopp heading wide from Matthew Kemp's corner, Ney Fabiano testing out the Adelaide stopper from a free kick and then hitting the bar from another set-piece. But the Victory's Tasmanian drought continued when a speculative long ball from the Adelaide midfield found Cristiano, who outmuscled his opponent and beat Langerak with a well-taken shot.
Melbourne Victory 1 (Ney Fabiano 8)
Adelaide United 2 (Cristiano 33, 90)
Crowd: 4720 at Aurora Stadium