ADELAIDE United coach Guillermo Amor was intrigued when Adelaide City’s legendary boss Zoran Matic told the Barcelona legend about the hurdles he had encountered when leading the Black and Whites to three NSL grand final wins in a golden era for SA soccer.

Matic was seemingly blessed when he had the Socceroos’ defence — goalkeeper Robert Zabic, Alex Tobin, Milan Ivanovic and Tony Vidmar at his disposal for the 1994 grand final triumph but Amor was taken aback when hearing the circumstances of the fight to keep the club at the top which prompted the late Johnny Warren to label SA as the “home of football’’ in the 1990s.

Amor will get his chance for more SA glory when he leads United to a first home grand final appearance at Adelaide Oval on Sunday.

“I like to learn about the history of the game here in South Australia,’’ Amor said.

“It’s important to know about what his team achieved in the grand finals, Zoran has the experience and now we have the game and we have to focus on winning the grand final on Sunday. But listening to Zoran, he is a football person and we have a lot in common.

“In the old Yugoslavia they had very good players they played very attractive football.”

Matic arrived in Australia in 1973 after studying construction and playing soccer professionally in his native Serbia.

Now the fit-looking 70-year-old who recovered from a nasty accident — where he fractured his skull, breaking his arms and legs when he fell 7m from a scissor lift on a construction site — will be in the Oval crowd confident the Reds can overcome Western Sydney.

Matic said he had postponed an overseas holiday to watch the impressive Reds.

“They didn’t start very well and he (Amor) built them up,’’ Matic said.

“Where they are now, that’s from hard work, luck doesn’t come from the sky.”

Matic watched his team of part-timers grow into NSL championship material in 1986 when the club won its first title before many won Socceroos caps at the height of the legendary boss’s rein in the 1990s.

“Mentally they (Adelaide City) were strong, a lot like this Adelaide United team,’’ Matic said.

“The saw an opportunity to make something of their careers. We trained six nights a week, they never complained, they had jobs as well.

“We had players like Sergio Melta who couldn’t turn up on Thursday nights because he was a hairdresser.

“So we trained alone at 6am in the morning, everybody had some qualities in the team.”

1994 NSL Grand Final

Melbourne Knights 0 - Adelaide City 1

(Damien Mori 68)

Knights : Miller, D. Cervinski, De Amicis, Vanis, Horvat, Marth, Trajeceski,

Biskic, A. Cervinski, Viduka, Buljubasic

Coach : Mirko Bazic

City : Zabica, Melta, Vidmar, Ivanovic, Tobin, Talladira, Mori, Veart,

Mullen, Lozanovski, Hassell

Coach : Zoran Matic