Tonight’s Asian Champions League clash between Melbourne Victory and Jeonbuk Motors will see a familiar face return to Australian shores.
Alex Wilkinson, formerly of Central Coast Mariners fame, is no stranger to the city and will no doubt be spurred on by the familiar sites.
“Yeah it’s nice to be back, obviously I haven’t been back to play [in Australia] for probably two years,” Wilkinson said.
“I was hoping we got an Australian team in the draw and it was good that we did so exciting to be back and looking forward to the match.”
Having enjoyed an illustrious career in the A-League, he has seen first hand the atmosphere that can be created inside Docklands Stadium by a boisterous Melbourne crowd.
“Yeah I’ve played probably many, many times here,” Wilkinson said when asked about tonight’s venue.
“It’s a good stadium, the Victory supporters are renowned for being very good so hopefully a few can come out although it’s midweek.”
With his vast knowledge of Australian football, Wilkinson will no doubt look to take advantage of his experience.
He is however yet to sit down with the coaching staff to discuss what he knows about tonight’s opponent.
“Not so much as of yet,” he said.
“They’re a good passing team and they like to play possession based football and they like to break very quickly when they’ve got the ball.
“They’re very quick out wide and that’s how they hurt a lot of teams.”
“The coach and the coaching staff have obviously done their due diligence and watched the videos of Melbourne Victory.”
One of those videos was Melbourne’s 4-2 defeat to Guangzhou Evergrande, and Jeonbuk boss Choi Kang-Hee was impressed with what he saw from the Victory.
“Melbourne Victory played perfectly for the first half and I know they are a strong side,” Choi said.
“It will be a tough game and in order to qualify out of the Group Stage we will do our best.”
Wilkinson was equally impressed by the Victory’s showing in China, and pointed out two main threats that Jeonbuk have to watch out for.
“They’re very strong going forward and very strong through the middle, obviously with [Milligan] and Tommy [Rogic] pulling the strings in there so that’s something that we’re definitely going to have to be aware of,” Wilkinson said.
“[Milligan] starts all their plays and Tommy’s really good in creating things in and around the box so we obviously have to watch their front third very, very carefully.