Kurz stay crucial to Jakobsen's Adelaide move

Adelaide United defender Michael Jakobsen sought assurances coach Marco Kurz would remain in charge before deciding to join the A-League club.

Jakobsen, 32, signed a two-year deal with the Reds in May after spending two seasons at Melbourne City.

But the star defender said he wanted to be sure he would be playing under Kurz, the German boss who was linked with an exit after just a year in charge in Adelaide.

"That was one of my questions to the club – if he was going to stay and he is so I was very happy with that," Jakobsen told Omnisport. 

"There have been a lot of changes here in the A-League with coaches so I was eager to know if he was going to stay because I've only heard positives about him, also from Johan [Absalonsen, former Adelaide attacker], he was very positive about him. 

"It's always important that you have a coach that the players like and hopefully I'm going to like him as much as the players have done this year."

Jakobsen has enjoyed two fine seasons in Australia, growing into one of the leading defenders in the A-League.

Having helped City win the FFA Cup in 2016, Jakobsen is hungry to enjoy further success with Adelaide, who made the finals last season.

"I always strive to improve, I want to do better and I want to win as much as possible here," he said. 

"Now the goal is to win some silverware with Adelaide and I think from the first season I was here to the second, they improved a lot with a very young squad, with some experienced players in there. I hope we can build on that and I hope that I can contribute to the team with something else that they didn't have last year. 

"I want to improve, but not only on a personal level. For me, first of all it's the team, so I will do everything I can do for the team and hopefully we can build on what they did last year. 

"I think they improved a lot after they got Marco Kurz in and if we can keep on building on that, I think we'll have a good season next season as well."