Cassio's time to bring the spirit back to Adelaide United Long-serving Adelaide United player Cassio at training. CASSIO says Adelaide United is lacking soul. The left back has the chance to wrestle his spot back from teammate Michael Zullo, who is away at Socceroos camp and will be out of Reds action for 11 days. Cassio - Adelaide United's current longest serving player - is likely to start his first match of this A-League season against Perth Glory at nib Stadium on Saturday. "We lacked spirit on the weekend we can't do that," Cassio said. It looked like Newcastle was playing at home and we were away, that's not good. But now every chance I have to play I'll take the opportunity, I'm not used to sitting on the bench in my career but I don't have it in my contract that I need to play in every game. Zullo has been good in the first games and to be honest that's what I like pressure, that's the moment for me now. The best moments of my career have been under pressure. Cassio finally returned to action after tearing a hip tendon in July. He earned his first minutes of the A-League season last Saturday off the bench as Adelaide coach Josep Gombau was trying to salvage the game after Newcastle Jets was leading 2-0 at Coopers Stadium. Cassio, 33, saw 26 minutes as Gombau reverted to an untried 3-4-3 formation which he said hadn't been rehearsed before Jets claimed a 2-1 win. But the Brazilian-born Australian added a new attacking dimension to Adelaide. Cassio found previously unseen space to deliver trademark crosses and passes as Adelaide rallied but ultimately failed. "The thing is when you play this system with the high line the full backs need to be already in attack and the wingers need to come in so we can overlap," Cassio said. In this system I will only overlap when the ball is switched from the right to the left and that's what I am good at. Cassio, however, said he felt like a teenager when he felt the crowd of 10,000 plus crowd urge him on when he entered the fray for Zullo on Saturday. "I felt like I was 19 again playing my first game for Flamengo," Cassio said. I made my debut against Batafogo (2-2), I came off the bench at the Maracana in front of 40,000 fans it was the same feeling for me on Saturday. I was nervous and so happy to be back after nearly four months with the injury (hip and thigh). That was a win for me but it wasn't a good night for the club.