(sportal) Adelaide has won the A-League Pre-Season Cup in exciting fashion with a tension-filled 5-4 penalty shootout win over the Central Coast Mariners at Bluetongue Stadium, Gosford, on Saturday night.

The scores were locked at 1-1 at the end of a thrilling 120 minutes of football that saw Adelaide leap out to an early lead through veteran striker Carl Veart before the Mariners levelled in the 77th minute through attacking midfielder Andre Gumprecht.

Despite dominating the opening half, Central Coast found itself on the wrong side of the scoreline when Veart scored a spectacular opening goal in the seventh minute with an overhead bicycle kick from 10 metres out after a pin-point cross from Socceroo Travis Dodd out on the right flank.

Veart went close to scoring his second in the 14th minute from another Dodd cross but his header went just wide of the right-hand post. But other than that all the chances in the first half belonged to the Mariners.

The home team, playing in front of a vocal crowd of 10,463, out-muscled the Reds in the middle of the park with strikers Stewart Petrie and Adam Kwasnik giving Adelaide's defence plenty of headaches and forcing keeper Robert Bajic to make a number of quality saves.

But despite the plethora of opportunities the Mariners were unable to convert and trailed by a goal at half-time.

The Central Coast picked up where it left off in the second stanza, throwing players forward in search of the goal, but the steely United defence, led by Socceroo Michael Valkanis, managed to repel the Mariners attack.

Central Coast coach Lawrie McKinna went for more attacking options, sending Jamie McMaster on in the 75th minute to replace defender Tony Vidmar, who had a solid game in defence for the Mariners.

The fresh legs of McMaster saw him make a quick break down the right-hand flank and his cross found Gumprecht in the centre of the park 30 metres out. The midfielder weaved his way into United's penalty area as the defence held off him, before he struck a low shot that found the corner of the net, sending the home team into raptures.

With Central Coast seemingly overrunning a tiring Reds outfit it appeared only a matter of time before the home team found the winner but United dug deep and ground it out to finish 1-1 at the end of regulation time.

Greg Owens had best chance of the match in the fifth minute of extra time when he maneuvered his way into the Mariners penalty area but his shot was blocked by Central Coast keeper Danny Vukovic.

Just a minute later, McMaster had a prime opportunity to win it for the home team when he found himself in space 20 metres out from the Adelaide goal but Bajic dived to his right to save the shot and keep the match at a stalemate.

Adelaide substitute Shengqing Qu thought he had won the game in the 14th minute of extra time when his free-kick from 20 yards out looked certain to be heading for the back of the net but Vukovic produced a fantastic, diving finger-tip save.

Both teams went close to grabbing the winner but neither was able to convert the half chances and the match was to be decided with a penalty shootout.

Jamie McMaster put the first penalty away for the Mariners with Richie Alagich levelling for United. And then the telling blow for the match occurred when Petrie's shot hit the crossbar and went over the top of the goal to hand the advantage to the visitors. Owens drilled his shot home to give Adelaide a 2-1 lead.

Wayne O'Sullivan confidently stroked home his penalty to level at 2-2 before United captain Ross Aloisi put Adelaide back in front with a textbook penalty strike into the top left hand corner.

Mariners captain Noel Spencer made no mistake with his penalty to make is 3-3 before Qu put his shot home. John Hutchinson slotted his kick to make it 4-4 and the pressure fell to Veart to have the match decider. The veteran striker stepped up confidently and found the back of the net to give Adelaide the victory and its first Pre-Season Cup.

Central Coast 1
Adelaide 1

Adelaide won 5-4 on penalties

Crowd: 10,463 @ Bluetongue Stadium, Gosford