Melbourne City expect Jamie Maclaren and Mathew Leckie to be available for their A-League Men’s season-opener against Brisbane Roar, but will make a late call on whether the Socceroos duo start.
Leckie, Maclaren and Andrew Nabbout headline the defending champions’ attack but have all recently been involved in World Cup qualifiers, with the former pair only returning from overseas in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Nabbout appears certain to start at AAMI Park on Friday night as he was dropped after a cameo appearance against Saudi Arabia in Sydney last week and didn’t travel.
Maclaren only played 19 minutes against China, but Leckie started and played the majority of both games and both players’ fitness will be assessed at training on Thursday afternoon.
“I know Andy is (fit to start) because he left the camp early,” coach Patrick Kisnorbo told reporters, noting all their players were available for selection.
“Macca and Lecks, we won’t know until they get in today. We’ll see how they pull up obviously before training and after training and we’ll make a decision tomorrow.
“It’s one of those that you’re going to have to (manage) over the whole season.”
While fully-vaccinated Socceroos no longer have to quarantine on their return to Australia, Kisnorbo still expected disruption throughout the season.
“It’s gonna be a year that’s a bit up and down to be honest with you,” he said.
“You can see already we’re getting our players two days before the start, so we’ve had to deal with that instead of having them already here.
“It’s just one of those things that we’re gonna have to deal with and adapt to.”
City have an array of attackers, regardless of how much their Socceroos feature, with the likes of Nathaniel Atkinson, Marco Tilio and Stefan Colakovski.
“We’d expect (the Socceroos) to be involved in some way, some capacity, whatever that may look like but to talk about those three does a disservice to Tilio and Colakovski, who had fantastic seasons last year as well,” Brisbane coach Warren Moon said.
“They’ve just got talent all over the park. You could stress yourself out getting headaches, just thinking about the quality of their squad.
“We’ll focus on ourselves and do what we do best and try and give it a good shake when we get down there.”
Brisbane haven’t beaten City at AAMI Park since November 2010, when they were still Melbourne Heart, and will be without skipper Tom Aldred (knee) and striker Juan Lescano (hamstring).
Because of Queensland’s quarantine restrictions, the Roar will fly into Melbourne on Friday and return to Brisbane after the game.
