The E-League is moving into its final week, and Western United is in the thick of the action with Saad still firmly in the mix at the business end of the competition.
After a strong set of showings in the group stages, Saad entered the E-League Finals on the weekend with plenty of confidence from a second-placed finish in Group B.
That meant Saad was able to skip the first round of play-off matches on Saturday and move straight into Sunday’s action, where he took on Nuggzy of Macarthur FC.
It was a textbook display from Saad across the two-legged affair, with his dominance securing a clean sheet over the whole tie and a convincing 6-0 win.
That result put Saad on the cusp of the final day of the season, facing off against Sydney FC’s Marko after he had stunned his Sky Blue teammate and last year’s winner with Western United, Dylan Campbell.
After losing the first leg 3-0, Saad responded well to grab a 1-0 win in the return fixture, though that wasn’t enough for Saad to avoid falling into the lower bracket.
Saad will now await the winner of Western Sydney Wanderers’ Mark11 and Noahja of Newcastle Jets. In the lower bracket, Saad will need to win three straight ties to have a shot in the Grand Final.
Western United had both competitors reach the E-League Finals for the second season in a row with Sesto achieving a successful passage through the group stages.
After moving through Group A, Sesto also took on Marko first up and went down in a hard fought tie before losing to Mark11 in the lower bracket.
Sesto spoke to the E-League broadcast team on the official Twitch stream and said he was pleased with what he had shown this season.
“Overall, even though I lost today, I’m still happy with how my campaign was overall. I came in just more or less wanting to make the finals, and I did that. Overall, I’m not too disappointed to be honest, I’m pretty proud with how I conducted myself throughout the season,” he said.
Sesto added that he has thoroughly enjoyed his time representing Western United in the E-League and said he was backing Saad to go all the way.
“Western United were fantastic, they’ve treated myself and Saad with 100% respect and they’ve done everything in their power possibly to help us out,” he said.
Saad will be back on the controller at 8pm tonight on Day 3 of the E-League finals, with a win taking him into the final day this Saturday.
