Melbourne Victory head coach Kevin Muscat has declared all the pressure is on Guangzhou Evergrande ahead of their Champions League clash later on tonight.
Given the squad that the defending champions have at their disposal, Muscat believes that the outcry from the media and the public will be immense should they fail to qualify for the Round of 16.
“They’re a very, very good team. They’re in this competition to go back to back. There’s no two ways about it,” Muscat said.
“The way they’ve spent is very aggressive, improving their squad. It’s a better squad than they did last year when they won the tournament and we went across there and for 45 minutes, played outstanding football.
“We’ve got no fear about going into that game tomorrow night and what I will say as well is if Melbourne Victory doesn’t qualify from the group stage, I daresay it won’t make too many headlines.
“But if Guangzhou doesn’t qualify from this group stage, I daresay there’ll be huge headlines.
“I’ve got no problem with pressure being on them tomorrow night. We’ll put pressure on ourselves internally because we want to go on and qualify. But there’ll be a lot more pressure on the outside, not only internally from the other camp.”
Guangzhou currently sit atop Group G with seven points, and recently lost to Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors in week 4.
They will be without the suspended Chinese international winger Gao Lin and the injured Italian maestro Alessandro Diamanti for the clash, but Muscat doesn’t care who is in or out of the line-up, preferring to focus on joining Guangzhou on that points tally by beating their Chinese counterparts.
“We prepared for them to be playing their best team,” he said.
“Without doubt Diamanti is a very good player. We witnessed that first hand in our first game. I’m not giving that too much thought if he plays or not.
“If he doesn’t it’ll be someone else’s issue not mine. My only issue is selecting a team for tomorrow night that’s going to be capable of winning the football game because we want to go to that last game in Korea with something to play for.”
The Victory themselves are coming into this game on the back of a red hot performance against Wellington Phoenix, which has given the side a big confidence boost.
They will be without Tom Rogic tonight, but will have the services of Pablo Contreras to call upon if selected.
“Pablo’s trained over the weekend and he’s fine as well but we’ll assess everyone more so after we’ve had a bit of a run out in the next hour or so. But all in all I think everyone is ok,” Muscat said.
“[Rogic] has trained, not at the same level as Pablo at the moment so he’s a little bit behind Pablo and it’s going to take him a little bit longer.”
Jesse Makarounas and Jimmy Jeggo will be left to contest the spot left open by Rogic’s absence, and with Brazilian playmaker Gui Finkler ineligible to play.
Muscat firmly believes whoever comes in will slot straight in seamlessly, especially with a whole season of training to understand the Victory’s structure and individual roles.
“From my perspective if I’m doing my job right then the person that comes in and replaces Gui and from the rest of the staff if they’re doing their job right they should understand what’s required of them,” he said.
“I’ve no doubt that that’s the case as it has been in the four games in this competition prior.”
Melbourne Victory face off against Guangzhou Evergrande at 7:30pm, Docklands Stadium tonight.
Photo: Matt Johnson