Adelaide United’s Coolen warns Flores of likely hard-marking

Adelaide United coach Rini Coolen has warned star midfielder Marcos Flores that he is likely to receive some hard marking this Friday night.

The league-leading Reds host the Perth Glory in Week 8 of the A-League and Coolen is well aware that a player like Flores may be targeted by the hard-tackling Glory outfit.

“He (Flores) has to be careful of the tough game that belongs to football," Coolen told the Adelaide Advertiser.

"Football is a contact sport and the referee is there to find out if some tackles are allowed yes or no. He'll have to handle that and make the difference when we get the ball. I'm not going to give Flores other jobs than the normal ones. He'll have to get used to it (the physical stuff).

"When it's going well like he has done in the last few weeks, probably they're going to mark him.

"He's not easy to mark.

“I think Flores can make the difference when he has the ball," the Dutchman added.

"OK, they have to find out how they're going to stop him.

"If that's with a tackle, that's OK with me because (tackling) belongs to the sport of football."