Good afternoon and welcome to the first match day of the season! At long last its finally here and what a way to kick it off against Sydney tonight. Pre-season games can only tell you so much and the first game is always somewhat of an unknown. How will the team line up? Can they gel together right away or will it be a much slower start? We will find out very soon but I’m expecting the team to come out firing.

Naturally, all the attention is on one, Harry Kewell but he says he’s ready to go:

“I’ve never once been afraid to play football. Even when things were going bad, I always find myself at home on the pitch.”

“So no, never butterflies, no nervousness, more exciting energy.”

To the team news, and we’re without Carlos Hernandez who’s on international duty with Costa Rica and Tando Velaphi is out for up to ten weeks through injury. Apart from that Durakovic has a full squad to pick from so it will be interesting to see who gets a start. You can bet Ante Covic will be making his debut and I for one will be watching his performance very closely. As for the lineup itself, I’ll take a wild guess:

Covic – Foschini – Leijer – Vargas – Fabio – Brebner – Broxham – Rojas – Kewell – Thompson – Solorzano.

I think we can expect to see Thompson out on the right, Rojas on the left of course and Solorzano up front with Kewell in the hole behind him. As for Sydney, they’re without Juho Makela and Karol Kisel who are both injured – welcome omissions from our point of view.

For me, the most important aspect of this game won’t be how many goals we score but how our defence performs. Its absolutely vital that we start the season strong at the back and I want to see a big improvement on set pieces. On the other hand, if we concede a sloppy goal or two it could spell danger early on and really effect our confidence going forward. Adrian Leijer’s leadership as the new captain will be key.
Well, thats it. There’s not much more that can be said at this moment in time. If your looking for something to listen to before the match, don’t forget to check out the season preview edition of Victorycast. I’ll leave you now with this nice little video. Enjoy the game. Come on Melbourne!